Ghent Scotus on the Knowledge of Being

7/27/2019 Ghent Scotus on the Knowledge of Being

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/ghent-scotus-on-the-knowledge-of-being 1/37

Medieval Academy of America

Henry of Ghent and Duns Scotus on the Knowledge of BeingAuthor(s): Steven P. MarroneSource: Speculum, Vol. 63, No. 1 (Jan., 1988), pp. 22-57Published by: Medieval Academy of America

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2854321 .

Accessed: 15/07/2013 15:55

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Medieval Academy of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to

Speculum.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 168.176.162.35 on Mon, 15 Jul 2013 15:55:38 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=medacad

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2854321?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp





http://www.jstor.org/stable/2854321?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=medacad



Henry fGhent ndDuns Scotuson theKnowledge fBeing

By Steven P. Marrone

The idea of a special connectionbetweenthe thought fJohnDuns Scotusand that of his forebear,Henry of Ghent,goes back to the timeof Duns

himself, nd in themodernscholarlyworld t s as old as thecritical tudyofmedieval philosophy.Moreover in the last four decades there has been a

proliferation f articles laimingthat one cannotunderstandDuns untilone

has masteredthe workof Henry.' Nowhere has the connectionbetweenthetwostoodout in sharperrelief han n the relatedareas ofepistemology nd

noetics, nd here mostespeciallyon the matterof the analogyor univocityof theconceptof being.

It was EtienneGilson'sarticleof 1927, "Avicenneet le pointde depart deDuns Scot,"that establishedtheperspectivefromwhich most modernworkon thesubjecthas begun. AccordingtoGilson,one of theprimary unctionsof Duns's notionof the univocity f "being"and his theory f the transcen-dentals in general was to keep open the cognitivepath between the human

mind and God - that s,toexplainhowknowledgeof God could be availabletohumanbeings n theworld ofsin.2Recentscholarshavegenerally ccepted

Research for this articlewas supported by a grantfrom the National Endowmentfor theHumanities.

'For a beginning,see Helen M. Beha, "Matthewof Aquasparta's Theory of Cognition,"Franciscan tudies 0 (1960), 161-214; 21 (1961), 1-79, 383-465; Anton C. Pegis, "Toward aNew Wayto God: Henryof Ghent,"MediaevalStudies 0 (1968), 226-47; "A New Wayto God:

Henryof Ghent (II)," MediaevalStudies 1 (1969), 93-116; and "HenryofGhent and theNew

Wayto God

(III),"Mediaeval Studies33

(1971), 158-79;and Camille

Berube, "Dynamismepsychologique t existencede Dieu chezJeanDuns Scot,J.MarechaletB. Lonergan,"Antonianum48 (1973), 5-45. More tangential o this ubjectbut still nterestingre EfremBettoni, Rapportidottrinali ra Matteod'Acquasparta e GiovanniDuns Scoto,"Studifrancescani,er. 3, 15 (1948),113-30; and Camille Berube, "Henri de Gand et Mathieu d'Aquasparta interpretes e saint

Bonaventure,"Naturalezaygracia21 (1974), 131-72.2 EtienneGilson,"Avicenneet le pointde depart de Duns Scot,"Archives'histoireoctrinalet

litteraireu moyen ge 2 (1927), 89-149 (esp. p. 117). A similar but earlier argumenton the

importance f Scotistic nivocity oropening a wayto God can be foundin SeraphinBelmond,Etudes urla philosophiee Duns Scot,1: Dieu: ExistencetcognoscibiliteParis, 1913), pp. 164-65.For variationson the same theme afterGilson's article,see Seraphin Belmond, "Duns Scot

metaphysicien," evue de philosophic9 (1929), 405-23; Andre Marc, L'idee de l'etre hez aintThomas t dans la Scolastique osterieureParis, 1933), pp. 32-33, 39; Franz Paul Fackler,Der

Seinsbegriffn seinerBedeutung urdie Gottes-Erkenntnisei Duns Scotus Augsburg, 1933), p. 17;Timotheus A. Barth, "Die Stellungder univocatio m Verlaufder Gotteserkenntnis ach derLehre des Duns Skotus,"Wissenschaftnd Weisheit (1938), 247; "Zum Problem der Eindeutig-keit,"Philosophischesahrbuch 5 (1942), 315-16; "De univocationis ntisScotisticae ntentione

principalinecnonvalorecritico,"Antonianum8 (1953), 83; and "Being,Univocity,nd Analogy

22 SPECULUM63 (1988)







HenryofGhent nd Duns Scotus 23

Gilson'sviews, ndeed strengthened hemby focusing lmostexclusively nthissingle functionof the theoryof univocity nd arguing in addition thatDuns was led to embrace the theorybecause of the peculiar theoreticalpressureshe confronted n his attempt o work out a defensiblecritiqueof

the workofHenryofGhent. EfremBettonihas surelybeen the most nsistenton thisscore, meanwhile puttinghis own markon the discussion with his

investigation f theconceptof an innate dea of God.3In ordertoappreciatethespecifics f this cholarly iscussion t snecessary

torecognizethat t starts rom heassumption hat herewereseveralcurrentsof thought mong Scholastics n the later thirteenthentury nd thatone ofthese,the so-calledAugustiniancurrent, ncluded among itsmembersboth

Henry and Duns. A primaryphilosophicalmarkerof theAugustiniancur-rent, t is oftenasserted,was the traditionaldoctrineof divineillumination,bywhichthe most certain formof human knowledge hortof thatprovidedby specialrevelation r beatitude that s,science tself- wasmade possiblebyan infusionof lightdirectly romGod intothe humanmind. In itsclassicform n theworks fBonaventure,JohnPecham,and Matthew fAquaspartathis doctrinewas taken as a seamless whole, but in fact it is possible to

distinguishwithin t threeparts,each one characterizedbythe specific pis-temologicalor noeticfunction twas intendedto serve.4

First,and surelymost obviously, he doctrine of divine illumination x-plainedwhatguaranteedcertitude n humancognition.God's light hone on

the mind, therebybringingthe cognitive cts of error-pronehumans intoline withthedivineexemplarsand raising knowledgeto a level of reliabilityimpossiblewithout ivineaid. In this ense theprocessofdivine llumination

accordingto Duns Scotus," nJohnDuns Scotus, 265-1965, ed. JohnK. Ryanand BernardineM. Bonansea, Studies in Philosophy nd theHistory f Philosophy3 (Washington, .C., 1965),pp. 255-56, 257; and Allan B. Wolter,The TranscendentalsndTheir unctionn theMetaphysicsfDuns Scotus St. Bonaventure, N.Y., 1946), pp. 12-13, 31-32; and "The 'Theologism' of DunsScotus,"Franciscan tudies (1947), 398.

3See EfremBettoni,Duns Scotus:The Basic Principles fHis Philosophy,rans.Bernardine M.Bonansea (Washington,D.C., 1961), pp. 16-17, 43, 46 (original Italian edition: Duns Scoto[Brescia,1946]); II problemaella conoscibilitdiDio nella cuolafrancescanaPadua, 1950), esp. pp.254, 354-55, 387-90; "Punti di contattofra la dottrinabonaventurianadell'illuminazione ladottrina cotistadell'univocita," n Scholastica atione istorico-criticanstauranda, cta CongressusScholastici nternationalis, ome, 1950 (Rome, 1951), pp. 529-30; "De argumentatione octorisSubtilisquoad existentiamDei," Antonianum8 (1953), 55; "The Originality f the Scotistic

Synthesis,"nJohnDunsScotus, 265-1965, ed. Ryanand Bonansea, pp. 41-44; and "Duns Scotonella scolastica del secolo XIII," in De doctrina oannisDuns Scoti,Acta Congressus ScotisticiInternationalis, , Oxford and Edinburgh,11-17 September1966 (Rome, 1968), 1:111. For arecentworkbysomeone other thanBettoni, ee theexcellent nalysisbyLudger Honnefelder,which although different rom Bettoni on manyspecificsmakes the same general historicalpoint:Ens inquantumns: DerBegriffes Seienden ls solchenls GegenstanderMetaphysikach derLehre desJohannesDuns Scotus,Beitrage zur Geschichteder Philosophie und Theologie desMittelalters, .F. 16 (Minster, 1979), esp. pp. 294-301, 305-13.

4 The description hatfollows s dependent on the analysis given n myarticle, Matthewof

Aquasparta,HenryofGhentand AugustinianEpistemology fterBonaventure,"FranziskanischeStudien65 (1983), 252-90. The three parts of the complex doctrine of divine illuminationintroducedhere correspond ooselyto thetopicsof thethree sections fthebodyofthat rticle.







24 HenryofGhentand Duns Scotus

was normative, nsuringthat the mind conformed to the absolute truth.Second, thedoctrineofdivine lluminationustified heconviction hattherewere some true assertionsknownbythe human mind that were immutableor, in language more common in the thirteenthentury, ternal.It did this

byattributingn aspect of thedivinityo theobjectsof'the human cognitiveact. Afterall, in divine illumination he mind seized the truthonly as itscognitive bjectwas suffused n an eternal ight.Third,thedoctrine f divineillumination ervedto describe themind'sroad to God. As interpretedn itsclassic form,thispart of the doctrinecould perhaps betterbe described asthenotion of an innate idea of God, as well as of certainbasic concepts ike"good," "true,"and "beauty"thatseemed best applicable to the divinity.nknowingthe meaning of these concepts,one had recourse to ideas Godactually mplantedon the mindbymeansof his radiationupon it. It was this

aspect of divine illuminationthat guaranteed a natural knowledgeof thedivinity.

This complex of threeinterwoven trandswas thedoctrineof divine llu-minationHenry inherited.Yet whereas in its classic formulation he com-plexityof the doctrine was not explicitly ecognized,from his veryearliestworkHenrymade itplain that he thought hat at leastthe firstnd thirdofthese partsshould be separated out one from another. His reason was thatthe processes involved in each case as well as the function ervedwere sodivergent s to constitute ramatically ifferent henomena.5

Insofar as God acted accordingto thefirst unction f divine llumination-as a lightbywhichthemind attainedcertitude Henrysaid he acted in

no wayas an object of cognition obiectumognitum)ut onlyas a means ofunderstanding ratio ognoscendiantum).6 hatHenrymeantbythiswas thatin theprocess eading tocertitude he mindfirstonfronted ognitive bjectsin theworldaccordingto the schemewherebyAristotle ad describedcomingto know the truth, nd only then raised thisimperfectknowledgeto whatHenrycalled knowledgeof the pure truth sincera eritas) ynormalizing tsideas or correlating hem withthedivineexemplars,through n infusionof

lightfromGod.7 This was the aspect of theclassicdoctrine mostcommonlyassociated withthe notion of divine illumination. t provided the paradigmforthewhole idea itself nd was, indeed, theonlyone of thethreepartsofthedoctrineHenryreferred o specificallys an illumination illustratio).

Insofar as God acted accordingto the thirdfunction, e was bothmeansof understanding nd objectof cognition. n factHenryclaimed that n thiswayGod was theveryfirst bjectofthe mind.8Drawingon the Liberdecausisand Avicenna,he assertedthatof all objectsknown,being,at itsmostgeneral,

5See Marrone,"MatthewofAquasparta," pp. 255-56, 279.6 See Henry,Summa uaestionumrdinariarum,. 1, q. 2 (hereafter itedfromthe two-volume

Paris edition,1520 [reprinted t. Bonaventure, N.Y., 1953]), 1:8rR; a. 1,q. 3 (1:8vA); a. 24, q.8 (1:145r-v[P-S]); and a. 24, q. 9 (1:146rV).

7 On thisprocess,more complicatedand more ambiguous than these fewwords imply, eemywork,TruthndScientificnowledgen theThought fHenry fGhent(Cambridge,Mass., 1985),pp. 21-40.

8 For a detailed analysis, ee Marrone,"MatthewofAquasparta," pp. 279-82, 284-85.







Henry ofGhentand Duns Scotus 25

was by nature the first.9Under "being" as first ntentioncame all other

concepts, ncludingothergeneralterms ike"good," "true," nd "one."'0 The

importanceof this became clear when one considered thatGod, too, was

initially nown to the mind as "being"; indeed theonlywaythe mind of the

wayfarer ver came to know God in anythingikea quidditativeunderstand-ingwas by knowinghimthroughhisgeneralattributes,fwhich"being"was

primary.Upon analysisone could see thattheconceptofbeinginwhichoneknew God was the most indeterminate oncept possible and thereforebynature prior to all others, ncludingall othercharacterizations f being. Inshort,God as known n his mostgeneral attributewas the mind's first bjectand its reason forknowing ll else."

It is Henry'sview of the first unction r partof the classic doctrinethatis most oftenpointed to as the object of Duns's criticism. here can be no

doubt that Duns took aim at Henry's explanationof knowledgeof the puretruth, hat he saw itas typicallymakingthe case for thestandarddoctrineofdivine llumination, nd that he concluded thatHenry's deas and thenotionof divine llumination n generalweresimply bsurd.12 uns complainednot

onlythatHenry'stheorywould virtuallyxclude thepossibilityfanynatural

knowledgeof thetruth,'3 ut also that tfellvictim o one of thevery hargesit had been specifically esigned to avoid. Accordingto Duns, Henry'sdis-tinction etweenan object and a means of knowledgecould not relieve themind of the necessityof in some way seeing God if it were to certifyts

knowledgetheway Henrymaintained. Divine illuminationn anyformwasat heartontologist.'4

9See Henry,Summa, . 1, q. 2 (1:4vC); and a. 3, q. 1 (1:28rB). Henry's referenceswere toLiber de causis,prop. 1 (ed. Adriaan Pattin Leuven, 1966], p. 47), and to Avicenna,Liberde

philosophiarima1.5 (AvicennaLatinus,ed. Simone Van Riet [Leiden, 1977], 1:31-32).10See Henry,Summa, . 1,q. 12 (1:22rL); and a. 24, q. 9 (1:146vX).i See especially Henry,Summa, . 24, q. 8 (1:145r-v[P-S]); and a. 24, q. 9 (1:146vX).12 Duns's critique is presented most clearlyin his commentarieson the Sentences. ee the

Ordinatio, d. 3, p. 1, q. 4 (in the Vatican editionof the Opera Omnia, 3 [Rome, 1954], pp.123-72). (Henceforth ll citations f thiseditionwill be made toVatican,followedby ndicationof volume,page, and paragraph number.)The parallel question from Duns's earlier workonthe Sentencess Lectura , d. 3, p. 1, q. 3 (Vatican, 16:281-309). An analysisof these questionscan be found n twoarticlesvery imilar n scope butdivergentn tone:JeromeV. Brown,"JohnDuns Scotus on Henry of Ghent's Argumentsfor Divine Illumination:The Statementof the

Case," Vivarium 4 (1976), 94-113; and "JohnDuns Scotus on Henry of Ghent's Theory of

Knowledge,"The ModernSchoolman 6 (1978-79), 1-29. See also Brown's"Duns Scotus on the

Possibility f Knowing Genuine Truth: The Reply to Henry of Ghent in the 'Lectura Prima'and in the Ordinatio,'"Recherchesetheologienciennetmedievale1 (1984), 136-82. The presentauthorcannotfully gree withthe analysisof Henry given n anyof thesearticles.

13 See Ordinatio, d. 3,p.

1,q.

4 (Vatican,3:133-35, nn. 219-22).14 See Ordinatio, d. 3, p. 1,q. 4 (Vatican,3:156-57, n. 258); Lectura , d. 3, p. 1,q. 3 (Vatican,

16:299-300, n. 187). Otherpassageswhere Duns alludes toHenry's heory fdivine lluminationand to the inconveniences nd contradictions hathe felt arose withinHenry'sown system f

thoughtbecause of his defenseof the theory re Ordinatio rol., p. 1, q. un. (Vatican, 1:31, n.

52); LecturaProl., p. 1, q. un. (Vatican 16:12-13, n. 30); as well as a parallel passage referringback to the discussion n the prologue, Ordinatio, d. 3, p. 1,q. 4 (Vatican,3:158-59, n. 260).The discussion in Lectura , d. 3, p. 1, q. 3 (Vatican, 16:300-301, n. 188) is similarbut not

exactly o the point.







26 HenryofGhent nd Duns Scotus

Gilson,Bettoni, nd theirfollowershave focusedon thisdecisionbyDuns,otherwise bona fideAugustinian,to rejectthe notion of divine illumina-tion.'5Strictlypeaking,of course,what he had done was to reject onlythefirst f the three processes bound together n the classic theory.Yet even

where this s admitted t is maintained that the philosophical significance fDuns's rejection pplied broadlyto thewhole. After ll,was not the first artof the complex doctrinethe paradigmatic mage of God's influenceon themindfor all of the functions,n effectproviding he rationalebywhichthe

remainingpartscould be understood? Could thelasttwoprocessesstandontheirown without he first?

Duns's rejectionof divine illumination, t is argued, created a dilemma.How was he now to accountforthethird f thefunctions ivine lluminationhad served and defend naturalhuman knowledgeof God? How was he to

explain thepossibility f a theology n whichGod was a meaningful ubject?How was he, finally, o maintainthe cognitive ntimacybetween the mindand God thatwas so much a partof theAugustinian radition?AccordingtoGilson and Bettoni, t was Duns's theoryof the univocity f the concept of

being that filled the gap. If the mind could knowbeing, as all admitted tdid, and if the concept of being derived fromknowledgeof creatures was

univocally pplicable to all possibleobjects ncludingGod, then themind, nitsearthly ife,could know God and legitimatelyalkabout himwithout nyspecial infusion from above. This, then, s whyDuns defended a theoryof

univocityhatmarked so radicala break withpreviousScholastic ssumptionsand withtheAristotelian nderstanding f univocals.16

There is surely greatdeal of truth n thisperspective n theconnectionbetweenDuns and Henry. The functionalistmodel it proposes helps us tounderstandthe place of divine illumination n the broader context of Au-gustinianthoughtand clarifies the theoreticaloptions Duns faced in his

investigation f being and univocity.Furthermore, s it suggests,Henry'sinfluence n Duns was ust as oftennegativeas positive, cting bymeans ofthe compensationsDuns was led to make to balance his criticism f keyaspectsof Henry's thought.Finally, lthoughthe issues of the divinerole inhuman knowledge of the truth and the univocity f the concept of being

15Camille Berube has argued correctlyhatDuns was notthefirstAugustinian, r Franciscan,at the end of the thirteenthentury o rejectthe classicdoctrine of divine illumination. n an

important eries ofarticleshe has shown howPeterOlivianticipatedDuns on this corebymorethan a decade. See Berube, "JeanDuns Scot," pp. 210 and 240; "Henri de Gand et Mathieu

d'Aquasparta," p. 170; and most significantlyOlivi, critiquede Bonaventure et d'Henri deGand," in StudiesHonoring gnatiusCharlesBradyFriar Minor,ed. Romano S. Almagno andConrad L. Harkins (St. Bonaventure, N.Y., 1976),

pp.57-58. Moreover MartinGrabmann

pointedout over sixtyyearsago that the FranciscansWilliamofWare and Peterof Trabes alsodeclined to support the classic doctrine of illumination.See Grabmann,Der gottliche rundmenschlicherahrheitserkenntnisachAugustinusnd Thomas onAquin Muinster, 924), pp. 41-43. Richardof Mediavilla was anotherFranciscanbefore Duns to cast doubts on illumination.See Edgar Hocedez, Richard e Middleton: a vie, esoeuvres,a doctrineLeuven, 1925), pp. 152-54.

16 On the radical newness of Duns's ideas on univocity,ee TimotheusA. Barth,"Zum Pro-blem,"pp. 317 and 319-20; and "De intentione," p. 72 and 77.








were essentiallyphilosophical, t was religious,or perhaps theological,con-cerns about human accessibilityo the idea of God thatplayed a large rolein determining oth Scholastics' ttitude bout them.

Yet thereality f the connectionbetweenHenry'sand Duns's philosophy,even on this one question of epistemology,was still more complicatedandricherthan has been suggestedbyGilson's and Bettoni'sviews.17 irstof all,muchremainsto be said about the factthatalreadybeforeDuns Henryhadshifted rimary ttention o knowledgeof theconceptofbeingin explainingthe wayfarer's ccess to the idea of God. Bettoni has done a good deal tomake us aware of this, howingas he has theimportance f the notion of aninnate dea ofGod in theAugustinian radition nd itspivotalrole forHenry,as wellas indirectly orDuns, in accountingformankind'snaturalknowledgeofGod through being."'8Yet the extent f theseparationHenry ntroduced

between the first nd thirdpartsof the classic doctrineof illuminationhasnot been sufficientlyppreciated. Partly n consequence, not enough hasbeen made of a number of remarkableparallels betweenthe structure fDuns's thoughtand thatof Henry's,especiallyas the latter s considered initsmaturityt the end of Henry'scareer.Second, itmustbe recognizedthat

Henry did not stand still as a philosopher.Over the course of his career

Henry'sthoughtexhibited considerabledevelopment, nd the shape of this

change,at leastthe end resultsof Henry's ntellectual rowth,would appearto have.foreshadowed,perhaps even suggested,manyof Duns's own ideas.

Finally,Duns's thoughtwas itselfnot static.The notion of the univocity fthesimpleconceptofbeingdoes notappear, forexample,untiltheCommen-taries n theSentences. uns's own developmentmust thereforebe factoredinto theequation relatinghis thought o Henry's.19

17 t is notnew to say this.The most recent cholarship n Duns, even whereit buildson theseminal deas of those likeGilson and Bettoni,has begun to suggestthat the earlierassessmentneeds to be reviewed.See, for nstance,Camille Berube, "Dynamismepsychologique"; nd "Del'etrea Dieu chezJean Duns Scot,"inRegnum oministRegnum ei, ed. Camille Berube, 1:47-

70, Acta Quarti Congressus Scotistici nternationalisRome, 1978); and Ludger Honnefelder,Ens inquantumns as cited above, n. 3).

18See especiallyBettoni, I problema ella conoscibilit&.ullya thirdof this work s devoted to

Bonaventure, n whose writings ettonifindsthe clearestexpositionof the notion of an innateidea of God. For all theimportanceof thishistorical heme,however,Bettoni's pecific iewsoninnatism nd Duns - his notionof a virtual nnatism f "being" see especially I problema,p.350-55)- misrepresent uns's thought.Berube has convincinglyrgued againstthe idea thatDuns held to some kind of innatism s keyto human knowledgeof God. See Berube, "JeanDuns Scot:Critiquede 1' avicennisme ugustinisant,"'nDe doctrinaoannisDuns Scoti see above,n. 3), 1, esp. pp. 239-43. A criticism f thisaspect of Bettoni'sanalysiscan also be found inTimotheus A. Barth,"Duns Scotusund die

ontologischeGrundlageunsererVerstandeserkennt-

nis,"Franziskanischetudien 3 (1951), 348-84. Bettoni'sreplyto Barthappeared as "II fonda-mento della conoscenza umana secondo Duns Scoto,"Franziskanischetudien 7 (1965), 300-314.On Duns's presumed nnatism, ee also FaustinoA. Prezioso,La critica i Duns Scoto ll'ontologismodi Enricodi Gand (Padua, 1961), esp. pp. 161-73. As I have indicated in Truth nd ScientificKnowledge, p. 137-39, one must ikewisebe carefulhow one reads theso-called nnatism ftheidea of God in Henryof Ghent.,

19For an analysisof this ssue and references o otherscholarly pinions see Marrone,"TheNotionof Univocityn Duns Scotus'sEarlyWorks,"forthcomingnFranciscan tudies.








On all these matters uestionsremainto be answeredbefore the fullstorycan be told. In whatfollows shallmake a start ysurveying change Henrymade in his epistemology nd noetics and by lookingmore deeply intohisideas on and metaphysical upport forthe notionof a primaryknowledgeof God in "being." Then I shall turnto Duns to examine what this moredetailed analysis of Henry leads us to conclude about the nature of hiscriticism nd the relationbetweenthe structures f both Scholastics' deas.

Finally shall suggestwhatall thismightmean moregenerally or an appre-ciationof Henry'sand Duns's thought.

Firsta closer ook atHenry'sthought, eginningwith changehe introducedin the latterpart of his career. The change had to do with thatpartof the

classicdoctrineof divine illumination oncerning ertitude r knowledgeofthe truth- divine illuminationmost closely tied to the paradigm. Most

expositionsof Henry'sviewson thisaspectof thedoctrine and indeed the

synopsisgivenabove - are based on portionsof his workcomposed early nhis career. Yet in later questions of his Summa and in all but his earlier

quodlibets Henry played down the notionof an illuminationfrom God in

knowledgeof the truthand came increasingly o see certitudeas derivingsimplyfrom clear knowledgeof the essence of an objectobtainedsolelybytheworkingof inherentpowers of the human intellect. n otherwords he

progressively istancedhimself romwhat s seen as theAugustinian raditionand moved towardsAristotle.20Some scholars have gone so far as to claimthatthe aterHenryabandoned

all allegianceto the notion ofdivine lluminationnnormalknowledgeof thetruth.A fairerestimatewould be to say thathe retainedthe idea, although

significantly odifed so as to accommodatemajor changes in other areas ofhis thought.The argumentfor this nterpretations complicatedand neednot be repeated here.21Suffice t to say that there are passages in Henry'smaturewritingswherehe unambiguously upportedsome versionof divine

illumination. hey should not, however,be allowed to obscure thereality fa transformationn his thinking. hose places in the laterpartsof hisworkwhereHenrytook the opportunity o analyze at lengthhuman cognitionofthe truth re, almostwithout xception,written roma largelyAristotelian

perspective.22By the end of his career, therefore,Henry had greatlyreduced the im-

portanceof a literal llumination ythedivine ightforhis epistemology nd

20 On the development of a more Aristoteliannotion of the truth n Henry's works,see

Marrone,Truth ndScientificnowledge, hapter

3,especiallypp.

69-91.21 Perhaps the most mportantworktosuggestthatHenryabandoned hisearly deas on divine

illuminationsJean Paulus, HenrideGand:Essai sur estendances e sa metaphysiqueParis, 1938),p. 5. The argumentagainst this nterpretations to be found in Marrone,Truth nd ScientificKnowledge,p. 7-8, 93, 100-101, and moregenerally hewhole of chapter4.

22The mostnotable, and fullest, nstancewhere the laterHenryreaffirmed is supportforhis earliest deas on divine llumination omes in Quodlibet IX, q. 15.Again see Marrone,Truthand Scientificnowledge, p. 94-100 and 134-40. For theAristotelianizing assages, see ibid.,p.93, as well as thepages cited above, n. 20.








noetics,essentially liminating t in anything ike the purelyclassic form ttook n thewritings f Bonaventure and Matthew fAquasparta. This was a

significant tep. It meant that thevery spect of Henry'sthoughtthat Dunscriticizedwhen he analyzed the problemof knowledgeof the truthwas not

as centralto the thoughtof Henry'smatureyearsas is generally ssumed.On this score the later Henry had already startedto move in the directionDuns was eventually o go.

Once one recognizesthis,one is led to ask what such a change, at least a

partialrejectionof the paradigmatic dea of divine illumination,meant for

Henry'sdefenseof thenaturalavailabilityf theknowledgeofGod. In otherwords,one begins to apply to Henry the analysisGilson and Bettonihave

employed on Duns. Would not Henry,like Duns afterhim, have had to

compensatefor the eclipse of a doctrinethatso clearlybroughtthe human

mindin touch withthedivine?An initialresponse to thisquestion would be to returnto the factthat

Henryhad fromthebeginning xplicitly eparated thematter f the knowl-

edge of God as being fromthe doctrineof certitudeor knowledgeof puretruththroughdivine llumination trictlyonstrued.Mightnot he have madethisseparation at least partlyto insulatehis ideas on human knowledgeofGod from doubts thatmight rise about anyontologism mpliedin a literalillumination f the mind byGod's light?And would he not have been ableto fall back on thediscretetheoryof God as first bject in "being"once his

confidence n thereality f such an illuminationwaned?23There is much truth to this response. At a minimumHenry was less

sensitiveto the consequences of his lessening enthusiasmfor illuminationbecause he had alreadycome to see naturalknowledgeof God as a distinctlydifferentssue. But as an answer to the problemthe responsedoes not gofarenough. For in this impleform tdoes notfullynsulateHenry'sthoughtfromthe termsof Bettoni's,and Gilson's, analysis of Duns. Was not the

paradigmof illuminationbyGod's light tillnecessary o make sense of thenotion of theprimaryknowledgeof God in thegeneralknowledgeofbeing?

Without hefirst artof theclassicdoctrine,howcould Henrypossiblyustifyhis understanding f the thirdpart,even ifexplicitly eparated off?

Two obstacles stood in Henry's way. First of all, he was not prepared toclaim thatthe mind of the wayfarerhad any cognitive venue to God thatdid notoriginatewith tsknowledgeofcreatedobjects ntheworld. He wouldnot admit toanyPlatonicprecognition fthings ivineor,short frevelation,to any presence of God to the mind other than throughthe knowledgeofcreatedthings.

There were, Henry insisted,only threewaysto knowGod and to know

thathe existed.24One was to see him directlyn his essence. This was the

23 As implied above, Bettoni'swork moves towardsrecognizingthis. His view of a virtualinnatism f "being" in Duns actually pproaches thepartialsolutionsuggestedhere forHenry.There remain,ofcourse,thedifficultiesfacceptingBettoni'sview s an accuraterepresentationof Duns. See above, n. 18.

24 Henry,Summa, . 22, q. 5 (1:134v-135r[C-F]).







30 Henry ofGhent nd Duns Scotus

wayofbeatitude and raptureand thus not relevant o the ssueofthe mind'snatural knowledge of God. Anotherway was to argue a posteriorifromcreatures o some notionof God sufficientodemonstrate,gain a posteriori,that"God exists"was true.This waywas available to thewayfarer, ut itwas

forHenryof little nterest. t offeredno quidditativeknowledgeof God andonlya physical rgument theargumentfrommotion for the factofhisexistence.25 or presentpurposes it too can be ignored.The thirdwaywasof much greater mportance.Like the second, it applied to thewayfarernhis normal state. In contrast,however, t permitted he mind to come to anaturalknowledgeof thedivine essence- that s,a quidditativeknowledge,even ifnot direct and pure - and see in itthenecessity f his existence.

Henry'sthirdwayto knowGod was to knowhim n knowingbeing. It wasalso thewayhe interpretedAvicenna's references o an a priori knowledge

of God. Althougha priori,this was nonethelessknowledgedrawn fromtheapprehensionof created things.Anything lse would have been tantamountto the firstwayof knowingGod, to the nude visionof God in his essence.26

Knowing God by knowing"being" was thereforenot simplyseeing Godhimself s at the centerof all our cognitive cts- as it had been forBon-aventureand Matthew n the thirdpiece of theirclassic doctrineof illumi-nation - but coming to have an idea of God in some nondeductivewaythroughknowinghis creatures.

The second obstacle was what made this first ne into the theoretical

roadblock it would appear to have been. For Henry agreed with all hisScholastic ontemporariesnot onlythatthere was nothingreally n commonbetweenGod's beingand thatof creaturesbutalso thattheconceptofbeingwas notunivocalbutonly analogical as applied tocreatures nd to God.27ToThomas and his followers heanalogicalnatureof"being"posed no problem,possiblybecause forthemtherewas no knowledgeof God normally vailableto the wayfarerother than the a posteriori,deduced knowledge of somenotion of thedivinitynd his existence. For thistheconceptof God did nothave to contain muchpositive nformation bouthisquiddity.Yet Henrywas

positing n a prioriknowledgeof God that revealed something f his "quidest."28 id he mean thatthe humanmindbeganwith knowledgeofcreated

being,thenaccepted the possibility f some otherbeing analogous withthis

althoughdivine,and finally ode thisanalogy to at least a minimally uid-

25 See Henry'sSumma, . 24, q. 6 (1:141rN).2t As Henry said of Avicenna's a priori way: "Iste ergo modus cognoscendideum esse, licet

non sittestificationisreaturarum, uod eleganterdicitAvicenna, rtum amen umit creaturis"

(Summa, . 22, q. 5 [l:135rE]). See also the same question,fol. 135aF. In Summa, . 24, q. 7

(1:144vI), Henry put the same point in differentwords,notingthat"materially" ll our knowl-edge, includingour knowledgeofGod, was drawnfromour knowledgeof sensiblesubstances.

27 " .. ita si ens aut esse praedicaturde deo et creaturis,hoc est sola nominiscommunitate,nulla rei; et itanon univoceperdefinitionem nivocorum,nec tamenpure aequivoce, secundumdefinitionem equivocorum casu, sed medio modo ut analogice," Henry,Summa, . 21, q. 2

(1:124rF). See also Summa,a. 21, q. 3 (1:126rD-E); a. 24, q. 6 (1:141v0 and 142rQ); andMarrone,"MatthewofAquasparta," pp. 282-84.

28 Again see Henry,Summa, . 22, q. 5 (1:135rE), citedabove, n. 26.








ditativeknowledgeof divinebeing withouthoweverreverting o discursive

thought r deduction a posteriori?Did such a processeven make sense?29

Henry'sdilemmawas certainly ot llusory,nd itsorigin ay n thehistoryof thevery onceptsand modes ofthoughtwithwhichhe was tryingomake

do. Other scholars,Allan Wolter mong them,have noted thatthe medievaltheoryof analogy,as opposed to a purelyAristotelian ne, was rooted in

Augustinian lluminationism.30t made sense to say thatone could come toa simplenotionof the divinebeing analogous to a simplenotionofbeing asone found it in the world if one believed that therewas always a divineradiationpouring on the mind,elevating ts terrestrial nowledgeand per-haps even inserting omething otally therworldly.Within heAugustiniantradition, herefore, he notion of analogyfound a secure home and led tomuchmorepotentassumptions bout thenatureofman'sknowledgeof God

than would ever have been possible in a more strictly ristotelian ontext.For all his reluctanceto embrace the literalreality f a natural llumination

by the divine light, t would appear thatHenry was not ready to give upthese potent assumptions,or at least so his defense of Avicenna and an a

priori knowledgeof God would indicate. Yet was the theoryof the analogyof"being,"strippedof itssupport n a theory fdivine llumination nd thustorn from tsAugustinianroots,sufficient o meet his needs? Without llu-minationwould not themetaphysical ividebetweenbeing in creatures and

beingin God be too wide forthemind to bridge?To understandhow Henry escaped fromthisdilemma, t is necessaryto

pressmoredeeply intothe subtleties f his theoriesof man's a prioriknowl-

edge of God and theprimary bjectof themind.Henry'snotionofa naturala priori knowledge of God was, in contrastto the natural philosopher'sknowledgeof God's existenceargued a posteriorifrommotion, metaphy-sician'sknowledgeof God inhisquiddity, ased on abstraction rom he mostfundamental oncepts of the mind,preeminent mong them,"being."31 nfact therewere two steps to thisknowledge,one betterdescribed as strictly"natural,"because it involved no discursive action of the mind at all, and

anotherbetter described as "rational," ince here the mind did have to dosome reasoning. The rationalknowledgeof God was built on the natural;indeed it realized thepotentialof thenaturalbyallowingthemind to forma positivenotionofwhatGod was and to see from his hathemustnecessarilyexist.32Henrywas especially nterestedn it since itprovidedhismostcher-

29This is essentially he objectionDuns was to make in his Sentencesommentaries, s willbe

apparentbelow.30See

Wolter,The Transcendentals,

p.32 and, on the

problemswhen there is no innateor

illuminedaccess to God, 41-43; and also "The 'Theologism,'" p. 398. See also Bettoni,DunsScotus, p. 16-17; on the insufficiencyf analogywithout nnatism,Barth,"De intentione," .91; and, on the criticism f the analogy of being by an early-thirteenth-centuryugustinian,Berube, "Olivi,"p. 64, n. 10.

:' Henry, umma, . 24, q. 6 (1:141r-v[N]). A reference o the first artof thispassage isgivenabove, n. 25.

'2For thedistinction etweenrationaland naturalknowledgeof God, see Henry,Summa, .

24, q. 7 (1:144r[F-G]); and also a. 22, q. 2 (1:130vQ).








ished wayto prove God's existence,his version of the proofofAnselmandthetheologizingmetaphysics fAvicenna.

The whole procedure - fromnatural to rational- is outlined n a long

passagewhere,

takingoff from an illustrious ext n

Augustine, Henryex-

plained how there were threegrades to the quidditativeknowledgeof Godas it could be derived fromknowledge of creatures: most general, more

general,and general.33 he mostgeneral level was knowledgeofGod in thefundamental knowledge of being, and here there were three further

subgrades: the initial ndistinct nowledgeof anybeing (hoc ns),thegeneralknowledgeof being (ens)as disposed to no determinate bject,whetherGodor creature,and finally he knowledgeof being as subsistent nd unpartici-pated (ens in se subsistens).his last subgrade led directly o the superior

gradesof more

generaland

general knowledge,nwhich

bygreaterbstrac-

tion,negation, nd finally ontraposition othe conditions fcreation n evermore appropriateidea of God was formed. t was the lastsubgradeofmost

generalknowledge nd the two moreprecisegradesabove itthat onstituted,forHenry,therationalpartof a prioriknowledgeof God.34

There is no reason here to go into detail about these last three,rational

cognitive evels. t is sufficientmerely o remember hatHenry'sunderstand-

ing of them rested on his vision of the natural knowledgeon whichtheywere based, and thismeans on the first wo subgrades of the mostgeneralknowledge: knowledgeof God in any being and

knowledgeof God in un-

qualified ens. In short,Henry's notion of the wayfarer's est idea of Godultimatelydepended on his understandingof the primaryknowledge of

being.It is fair even to say that it was the second subgrade, knowledgeof un-

qualified "being," that was key.35According to Henry, the mind quicklymoved byabstraction, r subtraction, romknowledgeof anybeing (hocens)to knowledgeof "being"alone, and here for the first ime tconfronted hatindeterminateness hich, funderstoodcorrectly, as themark ofthedivin-

ity.Thus the wayfarer'sknowledge of God was, in origin, a knowledgeimmanent n the primaryknowledgeof being,so that n knowingbeing atits mostgeneral,as the human mind knewbeingfirst,ttherebyknewGod,whether twas aware of itor not. Henry'shope to defend his claimthat the

metaphysician ould workhis way solelyfrom the cognitionof creatures toa quidditativeknowledgeof God depended on the success of his descriptionof thegeneral knowledgeof being itself.

But in exactlywhat did the primaryor initialknowledge of being-unqualified n any way- consist?Henry'sanswer s abstruse, o some minds

perhaps absurdly omplicated,but therecan be no questionabouthisgeneralintent.According to Henry being was the first bject of the mind because

33Summa, . 24, q. 6 (1:142v-143r[T-Z]). The reference o Augustinewas toDe Trinitate.3(ed. WilliamJ. Mountain and Fr. Glorie, Corpus Christianorum50-50A [Turnhout, 1968],1:273).

34See Henry,Summa, . 24, q. 7 (1:144rH and 146vY).35 See Henry,Summa, . 24, q. 7 (1:144rG).







Henry ofGhent nd Duns Scotus 33

the notion of being was so general that twas included in all otherconceptsand was actuallythe formalreason under whichall otherconceptshad to beconceived.36 et when the mind conceivedofbeing in this mostgeneral and

primaryway,said Henry, t did not knowa simple,undifferentiatedbject,and it did not really- despite a confusion thatwill be explained below-possess a singleconcept. Instead in knowingbeingmostgenerally hemindwasdirectedto twodifferent indsofbeingthatwereas farapartas creationand Creator and thatdemanded representation ytwoquitedifferent eneralconcepts. Henry explained that the conceptsof being the mind grasped inthis nitialunderstandingwere both ndeterminate this swhat t meanttocall themgeneral concepts,foralthoughtheywerenotstrictlyniversaltheywereconceptsthatdid notyetreferproperly o anyparticular bject.Whatmade them differentwas thattheywere indeterminaten twodramaticallydiverseways.

One concept of being was indeterminateprivatively thatis, it was in-determinatebecause the mind did not at that momentconceive of being asdeterminedto any more specificor finiteform,even though the kind of

being to which it was directedwas in fact suited in any real case to be sodetermined.This was a conceptofbeingthat pplied to creatures.The other

conceptof beingwas indeterminatenegatively. his meant that twas inde-terminatenot ust because the mind was considering t so at the time butbecause itrepresented typeofbeingthatcould under no circumstances e

determined.Such a concept ofbeing applied to onlyone object,to an objectabsolutely ndeterminable, nd that was God himself.37

There was nothingreallycommon betweenthese two sorts of being. Likeall Scholasticsof his day Henryheld that there was no singlereality hared

bysuch disparateobjects.38 his is whyhe felt t was only ogical to saythatthesetwo kindsof being could not truly ohere in a simplementalconfigu-ration. fbeing tselfwas so radically ivided,thensurely herewas no simple,undivided act of understanding aliquisunicus ntellectusimplex) r simpleconcept conceptusealis)bywhichthe mind could simultaneously nderstand

all being. Every concept of themind,even a concept so general as "being,"was thereforereally either a concept of God or a concept of somethingcreated,but not both at once.39Anotherwayto put this was to say thatthe

general or common knowledgeof being expressed in the second subgradeof the mostgeneral knowledgeof God - themostgeneral notionof beingthe mind could devise - was unifiedonly analogically.40

Yet ifthe mind could not form simpleconceptofbeingto accommodateall reality, t was neverthelesspossible - in fact, t was even natural- to

36See Henry,Summa, . 24, q. 9 (1:146vX).37On these two typesof indeterminationnd thewaytheyapplied to human knowledgeof

being,see Henry,Summa, . 21, q. 2 (1:124v-125r[P-Q]); and a. 24, q. 7 (1:144rH).38 In addition to the referencesgiven above in n. 27, see also Henry,Summa, . 21, q. 3

(1:126vI): "... nihil sit commune reale in ente significatumd creatorem t creaturam...."39Henry,Summa, . 21, q. 2 (1:124vO).4( See Henry,Summa, . 24, q. 6 (1:142vS and V), where he said thisnotion of being was a

"communeanalogum." Again, see n. 27 above.








representthe being of both God and creatures"equally and indifferently"(indifferentertaeque)with hesame word (vox).41 hus despitethe absence of

any trulyundivided act of understanding ll being,one could still dentifyan

originalor

primaryknowledgeof

beingthat ncluded the knowledgeof

bothGod and creatures.This was thewhole pointto Henry's explicationofthesecond subgradeof hismostgeneralknowledgeof God. Strictlypeaking,Henry admitted,thisprimaryknowledgehad to be characterized s a con-fusedknowledge, knowledgeof twodifferent inds ofbeingthatthe mind

confusedlymodo onfuse)hought f as ust one.42For all that, t wasnoeticallysignificant.he reasonthe mindfell nto such confusionwas that venthoughthe twoconceptsofbeingwerein factonlyanalogous, theywereso close thatto anybuttheveryperspicaciousthey ppeared the same. To think hattheywere the same was an error of intellection, ut it was an understandable

error and one thatrestedon a profoundsimilarityetweenGod, theoriginof all being,and his creation.43

It should now be clear how Henry's theoryof the initialknowledge of

being, absolutely primarybut not completely imple or undivided, servedhimas an explanation for how the mind could know God naturally n thislife.Justas the mind formed tsmostgeneral notionof being,or of anyofthe other of what were called the first onceptsor intentions,nitially ndmostbasically n a confusedway,so in the veryact of understanding heseintentions t knewGod, also in a confusedwayand in general.44ndeed not

onlywas it impossibleto knowanyotherobjectwithout lso knowingGod inthisway,but by the nature of intellection his most general knowledgeofGod was at least logicallypriorto anyother.45 ll that was necessaryforthemindto realize thatthiswas so - topass fromnaturaltorationalknowledgeofGod, or from he second to thethird ubgradeof mostgeneralknowledge- was for t to examine itsthoughts ong enough to extract heconcept of

being as negatively ndeterminatefrom the confused general notion. And

41 ee the passage cited in n. 40. Since "being" as applied to God and creatureswas not apurelyequivocal term,butrather n analogical one, it did notsignifyod and creatures quallyfundamentallyaeque primo tprincipaliter),ut rather God first nd creaturesonlysecondarilyand byimitation. ee Summa, . 21, q. 2 (1:124rI).

42 Henry,Summa, . 24, q. 6 (1:142vV): "Et licet secundum se diversos ntellectus istinctosfaciunt bonum creatoris et bonum creaturae,sicut et ens de deo et de creatura,quia tamen

proximisunt, intellectusnosterconcipitmodo confuso utrumque ut unum. Et sic isto modoadhuc intelligit onitatemdei quae est eius quiditas,modo confusoet indistincto bono crea-turae."

43 On the proximity f the twoconcepts and the natural tendency o take themas one, see

Henry,Summa, . 21,

q.2 (1:124v[O-P] and 125rS). In a. 21,

q.2 (1:125rS),

Henryadmitted

the confusionwas literally mental error: "Et ideo est error in illiusconceptu,"while in thesame question,fol. 124r (G-I), he explained the metaphysical asis forthe similarity etweenthebeingofGod and creatures.

44 Henry, Summa,a. 22, q. 2 (1:130vQ): ". . dicendum est quod cognitio essendi deumnaturaliternobis insertaest,quia in primisconceptibuscum intelligimusns unum aut bonum

simplicitern generali ntelligimus eum sub quadam confusione...."45 Henry,Summa, . 22, q. 6 (1:135vL). See also Summa, . 24, q. 7 (1:144vK).








although neitherthe confused,natural knowledgenor the more qualifiedrationalknowledgeof God was truly fhim in his essence,theywere still, s

Henryalways nsisted, omehowquidditative, ven f lmostbyaccident.They

were accidental because theywere not of God's particularnature but of ageneral attribute,ikebeing or good, which themind considered as ifsepa-ratedfromthe divine essence withwhich t was in fact dentical.46

Was it enough, however, imply o say thatthe initialknowledgeof beingwas confused,containing n idea bothofGod and ofcreatures, nd thatthis

explained how at the veryheart of all itsknowledgethe human mind knewGod ina waythatpermittedt to extract quidditative onceptofthedivinitythat could be used in metaphysics nd theology?Did this fullysolve the

problemwith whichwe began? As Henryalways nsisted, ll naturalknowl-

edge of being was drawn exclusivelyfromhuman knowledgeof objects itencountered n theworldof creatures.How thencould one account for the

presence in the mind of a concept of being negatively ndeterminate,conceptof God's being?Where did it come fromor,more to thepoint,howdid it arise?Was not the metaphysical ivide of analogystill s wide as ever,even if ocated much deeper among theprocessesof noetics?

As willbe clear below,Duns thoughtthatHenry simply ould not resolvethe dilemma posed by this fundamentalquestion. He consideredthe wholenotion of an initial,confused knowledge of being absurd and believed it

made a mockery fHenry's nsistence n theexclusively ensory riginof allunderstandingn this ife. Yet if we followHenry's thoughtust a bitfurther,we can see how from his perspective t mighthave appeared thathe had

adequatelyaddressed theproblems hedoctrine ftheanalogyofbeing posedfor his explanation of human knowledge of God. For there was another

aspect of Henry's noetics not yet considered, one with roots deep in his

metaphysics, hat made it at least logicallypermissibleforhim to maintainthat the human mind naturally onceived both God and creaturestogetherin itsprimary ct of cognition.What made thispossiblewas Henry'sunder-

standingof how the mind knewthe essence of an object, pure and simple,an understandinggrounded in Henry's metaphysical octrine of being andessence (esseetessentia). rom thispointof view the originof an analogousidea of the being of God at the veryheartof human intellectionwas not so

problematic s it appeared in a more strictly ristotelian cheme.

Henry's theoryof being and essence was partof a largerpicturehe drewof the structure f all reality.47o his mind the idea of res or thing thatis, all that had any purchase on reality,no matterhow tenuous - was themost basic idea of all, comingeven before"being,"the first r most funda-

46 On the accidental nature of this kind of quidditativeknowledge,see Summa, . 24, q. 6

(1:142rQ). On the peculiar way the mind divided whatwas in fact dentical n God's essence,see Summa, . 24, q. 9 (1:146vX).

47 For a morecompleteanalysisof Henry's deas about beingand essence,see Marrone,Truthand Scientific nowledge, p. 104-32, includingthe bibliographicalnote 31, p. 104. The fullesttreatment f the matter omes in Paulus,HenrideGand,pp. 67-135. See also Marrone,"MatthewofAquasparta," pp. 272-73.








mentalnotiononlyfromthe pointof view of the human mind.48Withinrestherewere, however, hreediscernible evels.49

The level of realitythat made the broadest sweep was the level Henrydenoted with the termresa reorreris.This was res stretched o thinthatit

included purely maginary bjects; anything f which the mind could formsomenotion, ven ifnot a trueconcept,was a "thing"bythis oosest standardof thingness.50 t the otherextreme of res ay the narrowest ield, he levelof things hatactuallyexistedat anytimeor whatHenrycalled resexistensnactu.Here was the world of existence,whereeverything as an actual beingthatcould be pointedto or experienced.Henryrealized that ctual existencewasnot imited o extramental hings, o that oncepts n the mindor fantasiesin the imaginationwere in themselves s much res existentesn actu as actualsubstances ike dogs or rocks.5' Yet the paradigmfor this evel of thingwas

the extramentalobject. Res in this sense was coincident with the world ofnature, nd Henryoftencalled suchobjects"naturalthings" resnaturales) r

"things f nature" (resnaturae).52Finally, n betweenthe othertwo,came thethirdcategory, es ratitudine.

Here, forHenry, ay the world of possibility. nlike the first ategory, hislevelof thing xcluded all objectsthatwerepure figmentsfthe maginationand that could nevercome to be.53On the otherhand, the membersof this

category f thingneed notactually xist, n contrast o Henry'sthird evelofres.To be a resa ratitudinetwas necessaryonlythata thingbe conceivable

bymeans of an authenticconceptof the mind. It was on this evel of thingthatHenry located the proper objectsof intellection, ornothingcould be

thought, trictlypeaking,thatwas not "thing" n thisway.54 his was also

48 Henry explained that thenotionor idea ofbeing (ratio ntis)was primary o the mindsince

nothingcould be conceived except as somethingthatwas, but in the absolute order of thingsthe notion of thing ratiorei)was first, notionthatabstractedfromor preceded the questionofbeing altogether. ee Henry,Summa, . 34, q. 2 (1:212rR and S).

49For presentpurposes the mostsalientpassages dealingwith hesethree evelscan be foundin Henry's Summa, . 21, q. 4 (1:127rO); Quodlibet , q. 2 (QuodlibetaParis, 1518; reprintedLeuven, 1961], 1:154rD); and Quodlibet II, qq. 1 and 2 (ibid., 1:258rB). Henryreturned o thematterfrequently, owever, nd among otherreferences ne might lso wantto look at Summa,a. 21, q. 2 (1:124vK); a. 34, q. 2 (1:212rR and S); and Quodlibet, q. 9 (ed. RaymondMacken,Henrici de Gandavo Opera Omnia 5 [Leuven, 1979], pp. 48-56). Henceforth ll references o

Henry'squodlibeta will be to the two-volumeParis editionof 1518 [reprintedLeuven, 1961],except forthose that have appeared in the new critical dition, n which case citationwillbemade to Opera Omnia, followedbyvolume and page number.

50 As Henry said in Summa, . 21, q. 4 (1:127rO): "Dicitur enim omnis creatura res absolute

[i.e., res a reor reris]ex hoc quod de se dicitaliquid de quo saltem natus est formari onceptusaliqualis in anima."

51SeeHenry,QuodlibetII, q.

9(1:60vO),

and the discussionof thispoint

in Marrone,Truthand Scientificnowledge, p. 105-7.

52 For "naturalthing" ee QuodlibetII, q. 9 (1:61rO); for"thingof nature" see Summa, . 34,

q. 2 (1:212rS).53 In Quodlibet II, qq. 1 and 2 (1:258rB), Henrymentioned two such imaginables, golden

mountainand a goat-stag.Aristotle poke of the goat-stag nPosterior nalytics.7 (92b5-8).54On res a ratitudines the level of the proper objectsof the mind,see Henry,Quodlibet II,

qq. 1 and 2 (1:258rB); and also Summa, . 34, q. 2 (1:212rS), where this dea is explicitly ied toAristotle's iewconcerningtheobjectof the intellect.








the level of "essence," of "quiddity"or "nature"- thistime not the natureof theexistingworldbut the formalnatureof everythinghat was a worthyobjectof the mind.55

Since resa ratitudine as the level of all possibles, t was here one would

look for the source of actual existents.Whatevercame to be had necessarilyto be an essence - in otherwords, thad to be more thansimply res reorreris althoughnot all essences need actuallyexistat any one time; some

mightnever exist.Yet whatgave a possible thing, n essence orres ratitudine,theontologicaldensity o makeitwhat twas?Henry's nswerwas that ssencewas essence because itwas representedbyan ideal exemplar in the mindofGod. It was God's eternalreasons that determinedthe world of possibility,and what had not been essentialized n this deal plane byGod could perhapsbe imaginedbut could neverproperlybe thought nd could never come to

be.Henry developed his theoryof being and essence withinthis vision of

"thing."As noted, it was on the second level of thing,res a ratitudine,hatessence took shape. It was also here thatbeing first nteredHenry'smeta-

physics.Res a reorreriswas "thing"so rare that t excluded onlythatwhichcould never even be imagined. Many such "things"could never exist norhave beingin anyway,not even the limitedbeingofsimply possible properobjectof the mind. For Henryentity egan onlyat the levelof essence or resa ratitudine.56ndeed, while resa reor eriswas in Henry'swordsresabsoluta,

only the other two categoriesof thingcould legitimately e called "being,"respectivelyns ecundum ssentiamnd ens ecundum xistentiam.57

The distinction etween thesetwo kindsofentitywasa hallmark fHenry'smetaphysics,n fact an area of his thoughtthat was involved n controversyfromthe start.Henry agreed with most of his contemporaries hat somedistinction ad to be drawnbetweenbeingand essence,but he wentfurtherthan mostwhen he insisted hatbeing tself houldbe subdivided nto a beingof essence (esseessentiae)nd a being of existence esseexistentiae).58 y thelattertermhe meant whatmost Scholasticswould have called simplyexis-

tence,the ontologicalstatusof an actual thing.This was being in the fullestsense of the word and was found only in objects at the narrowest evel of

thing, n resexistentesn actu.The being of essence was harder to define. It

represented, o be sure,an advance overthepure nothing f fantastic hingsthatwereonlyres reor eris, ut it was something ess thanactuality.59oday

55 Essence (essentia) nd nature (nat'ura)were termsHenry used commonlythroughouthisworks o refer ores ratitudine.or quiddity quiditas),ee Quodlibet II, qq. 1 and 2 (1:258rB).

56 For a clear statementof this arrangementof "things," ee QuodlibetVII, qq. 1 and 2

(1:258rB).57 Henry,Summa, . 21, q. 4 (1:127vS).58 On thiscomplicated aspect of Henry's thought, ee Marrone,Truth ndScientificnowledge,

pp. 112-20. Henryused the terms ontinually hroughouthiswork,buttwoearlypassages that

give a good idea of what he meantby them are Summa, . 21, q. 2 (1:124vK); and a. 21, q. 4

(1:127r-v[O and Q]).59 On the"pure nothing"of fantasies, ee Henry,Summa, . 21, q. 2 (1:124vK); and a. 21, q.

4 (1:127r0). It was different rom"pure nothing" n the strictestense,which could not evenbe imagined see Quodlibet II, qq. 1 and 2 [1:258rB]).








one might ayitwas theontological tatusofpossibility; orHenry twas the

being thatattachedto essence, separating t fromtheworldof imagination.It was thebeing that characterized hecategory f res ratitudine.

Henry insisted that being of essence was not somethingreallydifferent

from heessence or quiddityto which tattached. nstead itwas an aspectofabsolute essence arisingout of the factthatto be an essence a thinghad tobe represented by an exemplar in the mind of God. Being of essence wastherefore hemanifestation f a relation relatio r respectus)o God inwhicheach essence was involved by virtue of its very essentiality.60hat Henryshould identifyucha relationwith being" s striking, erhapsevenpeculiar.It means thathe wantedto create some sort of ontologicalcategoryhalfwaybetween fiction nd actuality.Yet one must not conclude thatHenry was

positing second category factuality eparatefrom hatofexistence.What-

everbeingof essencewas,Henry nsisted hat t did notgiveessenceactuality;beyondbeing of essence everyactual essence, everyresa ratitudinen everyactual case, also possessed being of existence, t least the minimalbeing ofexistenceof a conceptin themind.6' In actuality eingof essence and beingof existencealwayscame together.

In the last resort essence fell back on the denser reality, he actuality,provided to it by some existing nstance. If at any specifiedmoment theessence was a pure possible serving s an objectof thoughtbut not realizedin theworld of nature,then at that moment t fellback on the actuality f

its manifestationn a thinkingmind. Thus over eternity, ssence or resaratitudineeceived tsultimateontologicalfoundationonly n theactuality fan ideal exemplar in the mind of God. Yet everythingn God - and forChristians his ncludedeverythinghatwas eternal was identicalwithhim.From the perspectiveof eternity,herefore, he essences were the same asthedivineideas themselves, he exemplified he same as theexemplar.62

The importance fall thisgoes backtothefact hat ssence orres ratitudinewas forHenrytheproper objectof the intellect. hus in knowing hings, tleast in knowingthem scientificallyn theiressence, the human mind was

directedtowardsobjectsat a metaphysical evelwheretheywere implicatedin a profound and eternal relationshipwithGod. The mind was therebygiven access to a field of knowledgethe metaphysical oundationof whichwas God himself.

60 On thegeneralfact hat thingwas essence because itwasrepresentedbya divineexemplar,see Henry,Summa, . 21, q. 2 (1:124vK); and a. 21, q. 4 (1:127rO and 127vS). In Summa, . 21,q. 4 (1:127vO and Q and 128rS); a. 34, q. 2 (1:212rR); QuodlibetII, q. 9 (1:60rO); and QuodlibetX,

q.8

(OperaOmnia

14:201-2), Henryspokemore

specificallybout thisas an

outgrowthf

a relationto God.61 See above, n. 51, and the discussion n Marrone,Truth ndScientificnowledge, p. 122-28.

Henrynevermade the pointmore plainlythan in hisQuodlibet , q. 7 (Opera Omnia 14:166):"Et quod proptereaunum illorum,ut essentia,potest ntelligi ub opposite esse existentiae, ondico quod possitesse nisi in mente tantum:aliterenim simul existeret t non existeret."

62This conclusion is not uncontested mong modernscholars. For a more complete analysis,again see the discussion n Marrone,Truth nd Scientificnowledge,p. 122-28, and the biblio-

graphicalcitationsgivenin thatworkon p. 123, n. 78, and p. 128, n. 95.








At last one can see fullyhow Henry could have justifiedhis notion of aconfused primaryknowledge of being thatoriginated solelyin the mind'scontactwiththecreated worldbut led to bothGod and creatures.Given his

theoryfbeing

and essence, theanalogical unity

f themostgeneral

notionofbeing presentedno particular bstacle to theformation f an idea ofGod.For accordingto HenryGod was known n all essence- or to put itanotherway, n knowingessence the mind knewsomethingof the divine. In termsof the logic of the mostgeneral or first ntentions his meant thatGod wasknown best whenever essence was grasped in its most general attribute,"being."The mind did nothave to workas ifby nferencefrom heconceptof created being to the concept of divine being, since knowledge of anyessence furnished twithbothirreducible onceptsfromthevery tart.

In sum, although Henry had by his later career greatly ttenuatedthe

importanceof the classic notion of divine illumination nd begun to drawawayfrom literal nterpretationf its first art,God's light s a guarantorof truth, hischange was forhimlargely rrelevant o theissue ofpreservingthemind'sroad toGod. For inview ofhisdoctrine f essenceHenry'smatureinterest n an Aristotelian pistemologydid not threatento break the Au-

gustinian ntimacy etweenthe human intellect nd thedivinity ut insteadreaffirmedt. There wasno need tosearchfor ompensationbecause Henry'stheory f essence had alreadyallowed himto transposemuch of thethirdofthe functions hat divine illuminationhad serveddirectly nto the veryAr-

istoteliananguage he nowpreferred o use to coverthefirst unction.63hisis what iesbehindthe claim made above thatHenrydid not so much abandondivine illumination n his later career as finda wayto accommmodate t toother,more Aristotelian deas of his middle years. God was not only first

object,but also somehow always object,wheneverthe mind reached out totheexternalworld.

Moreover,whatHenryhad done with hethirdpiece of the classicdoctrineof illumination, urning t into his own special complex of doctrines about

primary oncepts,being and absoluteessence,bothreinforcedhis new ideas

about the first f the functions he classic doctrinehad previously erved andsuggested a novel solution to the second.64So far as the firstfunction sconcerned,Henry's fulltheoryof essence onlyadded resonance to what hehad come to accept about the certitude f knowledge. Basing certitude n aclear knowledgeof essence would now satisfy ot ust the concerns of Aris-totelian cience but also those more typicallyssociated withAugustine.Be-

yondthis,knowledgeofessence,as Henrysaw it, lso explained and ustifiedthe notion of immutabletruths.Now all scientific ctivity ook place on a

plane vibrantwiththedivinity,nd thus eternal.Objectively, ll truthswere

groundedinGod, and humanknowledge,bythenatureofthings,had accessto this mmutableground.Henryhad notoverlooked thephilosophicalprob-

63Again see Marrone, Truth nd Scientificnowledge,p. 134-40. As is argued in thatwork,

thesignof thistransposition an be foundif one lookscarefully t the anguage ofQuodlibetX,q. 15 (Opera Omnia 13, esp. pp. 262-65).

64 On boththefunctions, ee above, n. 54, as well as Henry,QuodlibetII, q. 9 (1:62rQ).








lems caused by the move away fromliteral llumination;he had resolvedthemwith metaphysics s ingeniousas itwas peculiar.

It is nowpossibleto considerhowHenry's deas boreon Duns's ownthoughtsabout human knowledge,particularlyknowledgeof God. Duns frequentlybegan his philosophizingwith n extensive ritiqueof Henry. ronically his

procedure served to intensify is dependence on the structure f Henry'sthought. t should be clear thatwithrespectto thisone avenue of influence,the terrainupon which Duns built his own intellectual ystemwas muchricher, nd alreadymuchmore fully ultivated, han is generally upposed.

The mostobviousplace whereHenry'sthoughtpreparedthewayforDunshas to do withthedoctrineof divine lluminationtself or more preciselythatpart of the classicdoctrinedealing withcertitudeor knowledgeof the

truth. ince Henry of Ghenthad alreadyanticipatedDuns's latermovesbypartially ejectingthistheory, t least in the literalform t took among itsclassicproponents, henstrictlypeakingDuns wasmerelyfollowingHenry'slead. Duns wentmuch further han Henry on thisscore,but stillhis viewsaboutdivine lluminationwereneither o novel nor so independentofHenryas theyhave oftenbeen described.

Of course Duns himselfnever conceded how close Henry had come to

abandoningdivine llumination,nd this should caution us againstassumingany simple,or simplydirect,relationbetween their deas on this score. But

we mustnot conclude thatHenry's change ofheart was unimportant orthedevelopmentof Duns's views. As will be noted below,on the matterof the

univocity f "being"itwas not his rejection f what he saw as Henry'snotionof divine llumination hatfigured n Duns's defenseof hisownnewpositionbut rather his criticism f otheraspectsof Henry'sthought, hevery spectsthat permittedHenry to distance himself from the classic illuminationistdoctrine. In other words, it was the theoreticalconcomitantsof Henry'spartialturnawayfromdivine llumination,hedislocations, laborations, ndaccommodationsgenerated in his own systemby his attemptto lay more

weighton the third part of the classic doctrine,that were significantnshaping the path of Duns's thought.They constituted he way,admittedlyindirect, ywhich the effects f Henry's previousmovewere transmitted oDuns.

It is to these more profound,if less obvious, areas of influencethatwemust look to understand the true nature of the relationbetween the twoScholastics.The epistemological nd noetic ssueswhere this connectionap-pears can be divided into two groups, each one consistingof a clusterofrelated doctrineswhere some of Duns's most characteristic eachingswere

worked out in the contextof a problematic riginally etbyHenry.The firstgrouphas to do with hequestionofthemetaphysical roundof intellection,includingthe question of the existential mportof knowledge.The second

group bears on theknowledgeof being and knowledgeof God.So faras concernsthe metaphysical round of intellection,t is apparent

from the starthow much Duns was workingwithin he context of Henry'svocabulary, ven his peculiar speculativescheme.Already n his earlywork,








theQuestionsn theMetaphysics,uns indicated thathe, like Henry,thoughtthat n intellection he mind was mostproperlydirectedtoward a metaphys-ical ground distinguishable romtheworldof existence. t was, of course, ahallmark of Aristotelian pistemology hat the object of the mind was the

essence or quiddityof a thing, bstractedfrom nyparticular haracteristics.Yet formostAristotelians his did not mean that one had to concede anyspecial ontologicalconditionsto account for the statusof the object of themind as such. One of the strikingspectsof Henry'sphilosophywas that hetriedto do just that, solating ssence from xistence nd giving t a ground,theesse ssentiae, hichaccounted for tspeculiarrole as intelligible bject. Itwas therefore signof some sympathywithHenrywhen Duns claimed thatscience,or true knowledge,was not of things n their actual existencebutrather of things n a being he chose to call, drawinga termfromHenry'slexicon, sse uiditativum.65ndeed the distinction etween quidditative eing(essequiditativum)nd an existentialbeing (esseexistentiae)as used byDuns

throughouthiscareer.66Attimeshe evencalled thesetwobeings bythetermsmore common in Henry'sworks, sse ssentiaend esse xistentiae.67

AdmittedlyHenry mightnothave been Duns's onlysourceforsuch termsor for the idea thattherewas a special sort of being attributable o a thingas itwas an objectof intellection.68et there s little eason to doubt that hewas the main source. Duns plainlyknewnotonly Henry's deas about beingof essence but indeed hiswhole theoryof the relation betweenessence and

existence, nd several timeshe took the trouble to layout Henry'sthoughtson the matter.One could not ask fora more subtle fsuccinct xpositionof

Henry'sthree evels ofresthan thatgiven ndistinction of the first ook oftheOrdinatio.69 similarly lear account appears in distinction 6, and hereDuns showed how Henry used the division betweenbeing of essence and

beingof existenceto make clear theontologicalhierarchy istheory fbeingand essence implied.70n thepassage fromdistinction Duns went so farasto accommodate Henry's theoryto his own preferredterminology, ayingthathe would rather all Henry'sres ratitudinehemanifestation fa realitas

quiditativa.7n short,Duns's essequiditativumas in greatmeasure an echoof the esse ssentiae f his famous forebear.

Yet to saythatthe issue of the ontologicalgroundforknowing, s well asthe general metaphysical tructure mposed by the language in which the

65 Duns, Quaestionesubtilissimaeuper ibrosMetaphysicorumristotelisI, q. 2, n. 6 (in the editionof the Opera Omnia published byVives, 7 [Paris, 1893], p. 328a). Henceforth ll citationsofthiseditionof the Opera Omnia willbe made to Vives,followedbyvolume and page number.

66 See, for nstance,Duns, Quaestionesuper ibrosMetaphysicorumristotelis, q. 1,n. 47 (Vives,7:35-36); and Ordinatio, d. 2,

p.1,

qq.1-2 (Vatican,2:209-10, n. 138).

67 An early example can be foundin Duns,Lectura , d. 36, q. un. (Vatican,17:468-69, n. 26).68 Paul Bayerschmidt,n Die Seins-undFormmetaphysikesHeinrich on Gent n ihrer nwendung

auf die Christologie,eitrage zur Geschichteder Philosophie des Mittelalters 6/3-4 (Minster,1941), p. 117, has noted, for nstance,that Richardof Mediavillaregularlyused the termsesseessentiaend esse xistentiae.

69Ordinatio, d. 3, p. 2, q. un. (Vatican,3:188-89, n. 310).70 See Ordinatio, d. 36, q. un. (Vatican,6:271, nn. 1-2; 273-74, nn. 4-5; 275-76, n. 12).71Same as above, n. 69.








issue was discussed,came to Duns largelyfromHenryof Ghentdoes not tellus how close theconnectionbetween hemwas.That Duns drewfromHenry'swork the termswithwhichhe describedthegroundof intellection oes notmean thathe intended them to be understood as Henry did and does not

necessarily mply hathismetaphysics f intellectionwas'the same. To extendDuns's debt toHenrythisfar, ne would have to findmoreextensiveparallelsin theirthought.And when one beginsto look for theseparallels, ignificantdifferencesmmediately ppear.

The first ignthat Duns was not readyto followHenryall thewaycomesin question2 ofbook 9 oftheQuestionsn theMetaphysics.his questiondealswith the relationbetween act and potentiality,nd here Duns introducedadivisionbetween threekindsof potentiality:mathematical,ogical,and me-

taphysical.72t was metaphysical otentiality more precisely, he thirdof

threewaysof defining hisnotion,as thepresent potentialforwhateverwasnotyetactually obe - thatwas ofmost nterest o him. n an initial ttempttoexplainwhat twas Duns gave a definition hat eems tohavecome straightfromHenryof Ghent. As he said, metaphysical otentialitybstracted om-

pletelyfromany potentialityn the world of nature (potentia aturalis) ndwas founded exclusively n essence (fundatur raecise n essentia).73t was,furthermore,hebasis forall real possibility,nd although ocated ontologi-callybelow the level of real existence t possessed a being or entity reaterthan that of pure fictions ike the chimera.74On all counts, especiallythe

identification f possibilitywith essence and the attribution o essence of alevel of being somewhere between existence and fiction, his was Henry'sdoctrine.

Yet immediatelyfterhisexpositionofmetaphysical otentialityuns tookcare to add thatany precisedetermination f theontological ignificance fall thiswould involveenormousdifficulty, ore thanhe was readyto tackleat thatpoint.75What is more,he thenwent on to offer second explanationofbeing in potency ens npotentia)hatdid without heelaboratephilosoph-ical baggage of the first iew and followed more closelywhatwould be his

thought, harply ritical f Henry,from ater n hiscareer.Accordingto thissecond position, "being in potency formallyposited nothing other than

nonbeing, to which being could succeed," so that "essence had no entitywhatsoever, xceptwhen itactually xisted." This view,Duns noted,seemedmore probable than the other.76

By the timeDuns came to hisCommentariesn the entences e had resolved

72 Quaestionessuper ibrosMetaphysicorumX, q. 2, n. 2 (Vives,7:53 la).73 Quaestiones

uperibros

MetaphysicorumX,

q.2, n. 5

(Vives,7:533a).74 "Propterhoc ergo ponitur stapotentiaMetaphysicanessentiapossibili, liqua entitasqualisnon est in Chimera,"ibid.,n. 6 (Vives,7:534a).

75 Ibid. (Vives,7:534a-b): "Sed de fundamento jus, qualem entitatem abetantequamexistat,difficultas stmagna, nec hic pertractanda...."

76 Ibid., n. 7 (Vives,7:535a-b). Camille Berube has discussedthis ame passage in "Pour unehistoiredes preuves de l'existencede Dieu chez Duns Scot," in Deus ethomo d mentem. DunsScoti,Acta Tertii Congressus Scotistici nternationalis,Vienna, 28 September-2 October 1970(Rome, 1972), p. 21.








the ambiguity f his earlier ideas. Here he explicitly ttackedthe theoryofessence that he found in Henry.On the one hand he adopted the criticisms

alreadymade by Godfreyof Fontaines thatHenry's theoryof essence, par-ticularly s it related to being of essence, carriedunacceptable implicationsabout the nature of creation. If Henrywas right, aid Duns, thenitwouldbe hard to defend eithercreation ex nihilo r creation n time.77 n theotherhand he insisted hatHenry'snotion of absoluteessence,sinceit entailedanintrinsic elation to God thatprovided the foundation forbeing of essence,led to impossiblecomplications oncerninghuman knowledgeof God in thislife. f Henrywas right bout thisrelation,Duns argued,and about the claimthat the human mind could naturallycomprehend both extremes of therelation whichwas the basis forHenry's explanationof the originof the

concept of God - then the human intellect hould be able to derive a

particular, ndeed perfect,proper concept of God from ts knowledge ofcreatures,somethingDuns stoutlydenied throughouthis career.78Yet if

Henrywas rightonlyabout thenature of essence founded in an exemplaryrelationand not about human knowledgeof it - a more likelypossibilityeven givingHenry the benefitof the doubt about the natureof essence -then his view would condemn mankind to no natural knowledge of Godwhatsoever.79 ither implicationwas unacceptable,and so Henry'sviews ofessence or res ratitudine usttherefore e wrong.

Yet Duns thoughtHenry's views of essence were to be rejectednot ustbecause they nvolvedtheologically ntenableimplications;he also criticizedthem nthemselves s irrational nd unphilosophical.First fall,he attackedtheverynotion ofa special sortofentity rbeingness risingoutof a peculiarnode of being, the esseessentiae,hat in the final analysis reduced to an

exemplaryrelation to God. This was, of course, the foundation forHenry'scategoryof resa ratitudine,n Henry's system ynonymouswith essence andthe ontological evel where entity egan. To Duns this was pure nonsense;whatever omethingwas essentially,thad to be so absolutely, ot relatively,

77 See Duns, Ordinatio, d. 30, qq. 1-2; d. 36, q. un. (Vatican,6:174-75, n. 16; 276-78, nn.

13-18; 280-81, n. 25); and Lectura , d. 36, q. un. (Vatican,17:464-65, nn. 13-17). On Godfreyof Fontaines'scriticism, egin with the analysisby John F. Wippel, TheMetaphysicalhought fGodfreyfFontainesWashington,D.C., 1981), pp. 70-71, 132-36, and 140-41. A conciseanalysisof Duns's rejectionof Henryon this core comes in Hans-JoachimWerner,Die ErmoglichungesendlicheneinsnachJohannesuns Scotus Frankfurtm M., 1974), pp. 41-43.

78See one ofDuns's collationesot ncludedintheVivesedition: Collatio 4 as editedbyCharlesBalic, "De CollationibusIoannis Duns Scoti doctorissubtilis c mariani,"BogoslovniVestnik 9

(1929), 217; and Collatio3 as edited byCharles R. S. Harris, n Duns Scotus, (Oxford, 1927),

p.375. The texts

givenbyBalic and Harris are not

exactlyhesame,and in this ase a conflation

of thetwogiveswhat s probablythebestreading.79Duns, Ordinatio, d. 8, p. 1,q. 3 (Vatican,4:174-77, nn. 52-54). As theeditorsof theOpera

Omnia note,Duns was here probablyattacking heviews of Henrymore precisely s theyhadbeen representedby his follower Richard of Conington. On Richard, see VictorinDoucet,"L'oeuvre scolastique de Richard de Conington,O.F.M.," Archivumranciscanum istoricum9

(1936), 396-442; and StephenF. Brown,"RichardofConington nd theAnalogyof theConceptof Being,"Franziskanischetudien 8 (1966), 297-307. Other argumentsdrawnfromthe impli-cationsof Henry's theory an be found in Duns, Ordinatio, d. 35, q. un. (Vatican, 6:254-57).








and it had to be so in itself essentialiterd se). If not,thenno relation with

anything lse whatsoever ould make up forthemetaphysical mptinessoftheobject,an emptiness hatwould have prevented t from n any way beingconsidered essence or res rata.80Even more to the point,Duns altogetherdenied that God's exemplaryrelation to a thing,whichforHenrywas thebasis for esse essentiae nd the cause of essence, could be separated, as if intwoontologicalmoments,fromhis relationto thething s its efficientause,forHenry the source of the subsequentesseexistentiae.here was no beingGod gave to a thingas its divine exemplar that was prior to or somehow

ontologically hort of the beinghe gave it as creator.81The whole notion ofa quidditativebeing speciallytied to the objectas exemplatumas philosoph-icallyfraudulent.

ClearlyDuns wantedto dissociatehimself rom rucialaspectsof theviews

on essence takenby Henryof Ghent.Whatis not so clear is the substanceofhis own attitudetowardsquidditativebeing and themetaphysicalnature oftheobjectofthe ntellect.He had, after ll,alreadyacceptedmuchofHenry'sterminologynd even a good deal of his schema forresolving he issue. He

agreed withHenry thatthe mind's proper object was not only essence or

quidditybut something haracterizable ntologically s havinga quidditativebeing. And even though it is easy to forget t in lightof the foregoingdiscussion,strictlypeaking neitherDuns nor Henryheld thatquidditativebeing, esseessentiae,ould be separated in actualityfrom esseexistentiae,he

being of existence. Duns stated as much plainly n his own works,and al-thoughDuns does not seem to have recognized it,so did Henry.82Where,exactly, id the difference etween the two arise?

The answer would seem to lie in the fact that despite their points of

agreement,Duns felt hatHenrymade thegap betweenbeingofessence and

beingof existence too great.Henryhad located thefirst,most fundamentaldivision within ll entitybetweenresa ratitudine,ssence, and res existensnactu,the actual existent. t was only secondarily hatres existensn actuwasfurther ivided intores n animaand resextra nimam. hus despitehis claim

that n actuality ssence and existence could not be separated,he stilldrewhismajor metaphysical ivide between thesetwo. Did this notimply hat esseessentiae,hemode of beingcharacteristicf res ratitudine,as of elemental

ontological significance?For all Henry's insistencethat being of essenceshould not be confused withactuality, e seemed to be lending it a meta-

physicalprestigenearlyas great.Duns, on the otherhand, placed the initialdivisionwithin ntity etween

ens extra nimam nd ens in anima,a thingoutside the mind and a thing

80 ". . . dico quod nullusrespectusestratitudo, ivequo aliquid estfirmum ns vel verum ensvel certumens, in quacumque entitate, uia omnis respectushabet aliquid in quo fundatur,quod secundum se non est ad aliud; et in illo primo, in quo essentialiter d se, si non estessentialiter ns certum,ens firmum, on est capax alicuiusrespectusper quem fiat ns ratum. "; Ordinatio, d. 3, p. 2, q. un. (Vatican,3:194-95, n. 323).

81 Duns, Lectura , d. 2, p. 1,qq. 1-2 (Vatican, 16:124-25, n. 39).82 See Duns, Ordinatio, d. 36, q. un. (Vatican,6:290, n. 48); and II, d. 1,q. 2 (Vatican,7:43,

n. 82). For Henry'sviews, ee above, n. 61.








existing nlyas an objectofthought.The category fthing utsidethemindcould then be furtherpartitioned ccordingto being of essence and beingof existence.83 his meant that for Duns being of essence lost the specialontological position t had forHenry; itbecame simply n aspect of whatit

was to be an object in the world. From thispoint of view,no matterwhatHenry said about the nonactuality f absolute essence or being of essence,he seemed inevitably obe raising hembothto a level ofontologicalprimacythatwas simply ncomprehensible.

It is impossible to emphasize this point too much. For Duns the first

questionto ask of all entitywas what was being pure and simple esse impli-citer), n undivided reality hat attachedto all actuality nd short of which

nothingwas truly eing (verumsse).His answer was thatno objecthad beingpure and simplethat was not an object in itself, ifferent rom ts consider-

ation in a knowingmind. In otherwords,being pure and simplewas fromthevery tart o be contrasted obeingunderstood or beingunderstandable;itwas the ontologicalstatusthatattached to an objectas a thingoutside themind ensextra nimam) nd to which no objectas merely omething hought,no ens nanima, ould pretend.84No wonder Duns was disturbedbythewayHenry arrangedhiscategories.He appeared tohave turnedthe worldupsidedown. He had made being nthe mind and beingoutsidethemindsecondaryaspectsof actuality,meanwhile eparatingbeingof essence off o itself, riorto and above existence.Duns could imagineonlythatforHenrythe equiv-alentof being pure and simpleattached to essence with tsbeingof essencealone.85From Duns's perspective, hiswas an intolerable buse.

Yet ifactual objects n themselves lone had truebeing,whatthen was the

beingof an objectas a thing n the mind? t was,Duns claimed,thebeingofan objectonly n a mannerof speaking esse ecundumuid).86 his was to saythatstrictlypeakingan objectof themind,as an object n themind,had no

beingat all; as thought, he objectdeserved to be completelynsulated fromthequestionofwhether tactuallywas or was not.Nevertheless houghthadto be grounded in some actuality,n some truebeing; otherwise hethoughtitselfwould not be. So ifone pressedon to askwhatwas theactuality ehindthought, heonly possible answerwas thebeing of the mind itself. n otherwords theontologicalfoundationforan object n themindwas nothingmore

83 Duns, Ordinatio, d. 36, q. un. (Vatican,6:285, n. 36), especially he ine". . .prima distinctioentisvidetur esse in ens extra animamet in ens in anima .. ." An excellentdiscussion of this

passage can be found in Hadrianus Borak, "Aspectus fundamentalesplatonismi n doctrinaDuns Scoti," in De doctrinaoannisDuns Scoti (see above, n. 3), 1:121-23, 125-28. See alsoOrdinatio, d. 36, q. un. (Vatican,6:298, n. 66).

84 See Duns, Ordinatio, d. 36,q.

un. (Vatican,6:281-82, n. 28); and also thepassage

referredto in n. 83 above, Ordinatio, d. 36, q. un. (Vatican,6:285, n. 36).

85 Duns was notthefirst o saythatHenrywas putting oo muchof an ontologicalburden onhis category f absolute essence with tsspecial beingof essence,althoughHenrywould surelyhave protestedthat his criticswere distorting is thought.See the referencesgivenabove, n.61.

86 This paragraph and the next are based on Duns, Ordinatio, d. 36, q. un. (Vatican,6:288-

89, nn. 44-46). For mentionof esse secundumuid,see also Lectura , d. 36, q. un. (Vatican,17:470-71, nn. 30-31; 475, n. 40).








than thebeing pure and simpleof the intellect hinking f theobject; it wasthe actual existenceof the mind. As this was not formallyformaliter)he

being of the object thoughtbut ratherthe being of the mind, it could beattributed o theobjectonly bya philosophicalfigure f speech.

Such beingof theobject n themind,an esse ecundumuid,provided,Dunsthought, ufficientntologicalbasis for the mindtruly o knowanyobjectin otherwords, for a relation, f only a conceptual one, to be establishedbetween the mind and the not necessarily ctual objectof itsthought.Onecould thereforethinkof an object, even thinkmore particularly bout itsessence or its existence,regardlessof the object's real - thatis, actual or

pure and simple- ontological tate.87 ne could evenmake true statementsabout theobject,about what twas like or wouldbe likewhen or if texisted,although tmightnotpresently e. It was sufficientorthemindto existfor

thought o proceed.For Duns then,the being of an object as thought, he being of an ens n

anima,was an esse ognitum,r in Scholastic anguage thathad been standardforsome time,an essediminutum a diminishedbeing.88And forDuns, tobe thought, o be in esse ognitumr essediminutum,as,from heperspectiveof the object itself, ntologicallyneutral. To be thoughtan object did nothave to have being of existence; it did not have to have being of essence.Indeed thinking f something, ven thinking f it as actually existing,didnot properlydemand anything f theobject.The human mind could think

of things,and a fortioriGod could thinkof them,withoutputting anyontologicalconstraints n the objects n themselves. n the final nalysisesse

cognitumaid more about themindthanabout theobjectitself.The importance f thisbecomesclear if one remembers hatDuns felt hat

when the mind considered something cientificallytthoughtof itsessence,so that t considered the object from the pointof view of itsesse ssentiaer

quidditativebeing. This is whyhe agreed withHenry that the quidditativebeingwas theproperscientificbjectof the mind.89 et,unlikeHenry,Dunsheld thatquidditativebeingwas not an ontologicalcategory hat attachedto

thereality f the mentalconception,to the ens n anima. nstead it attachedto the object in itself,whichat thattimemightnot reallybe. Quidditativebeingdid not,therefore, ontribute ntologically o thought tself; twas nota part of the object's being as thought, ts essecognitum. ike the actualexistence f an object,quidditative einghad to be keptontologically eparatefromtheactuality f the thoughtprocess itself.

87 As Duns noted in Ordinatio, d. 36, q. un. (Vatican,6:281, n. 28), an object could be the

object of thought n either ts essence or its existence.This is to say that that to which ens nanimareferred ould be eitherens n esse ssentiae r ens n esse xistentia.ee also Lectura , d. 36,q. un. (Vatican, 17:469, n. 26).

88 See Duns, Ordinatio , d. 36, q. un. (Vatican, 6:284, n. 34); and Lectura , d. 36, q. un.(Vatican, 17:468-69, n. 26; and 470-71, n. 30). On thehistory f the notion of ensdiminutum,see ArrnandMaurer,"Ens diminutum: Note on Its Originand Meaning,"MediaevalStudies 2(1950), 216-22. The termensdiminutumlso appears frequentlyn theworkofHenryofGhent,likewise o referto thebeingof an object in themind.See, for nstance,Henry,QuodlibetII, q.15 (1:76rA).

89 See above, . 65.








All thismeant thatforDuns the fundamental roblems hatHenryworkedout metaphysically,most especiallyby using the elusive "being of essence,"had to be resolvedon a different hilosophicalplane. Possibility,he meta-

physicaldistillate f essence,was forbothHenryand Duns coincidentwith

quidditativebeing,theontological ocus of scientifichought.Yet forHenrythisbeing- the same as being of essence - was realized in esse ognitumsthe mind considered itsobject,and itwas founded in theexemplaryrelationbetweenthingand God that was its ultimate ctual support.For Duns quid-ditative eing,as an absoluteattribute f theobjectofthought, eparatefromessecognitum, ightat the time it was under consideration maybe evenforever have no actuality t all. Possibility,herefore, ad nowhereto turnbut to logic alone.

Of course, insofaras possibilitywas to be traced to some actual being, it

finally ested in the essecognitumf a mentalobject.Whateverwas possiblehad tobe thoughtbefore t came tobe; at least thad to be thought yGod.90But this was a matterof onlysecondaryphilosophical mportance.Esse cog-nitum ttached to the object, and thus to the objective quiddity,only in amanner of speaking. And it was to the object and itsquiddityone had tolook to explain possibility. rom the point of view of the object in itselffrom heperspective fquidditative eing-- whatmade thepossiblepossible,and what differentiatedt from the purely maginarybut impossible,from

something ike a chimera,was neither God's thoughtnor the ontologicalconcomitant f any relationto God but ratherthe purelyformalcharacter-isticsof the thing tself, bstractedfromany considerationof actuality.AsDuns said, over eternity he quality"to be nothing" nonesse liquid) couldbe attributed o both "man" and "chimera,"but onlyto man was thequality"to be something"not totally epugnant: "And the reason why thisqualityis] not repugnantto 'man' and yetrepugnantto 'chimera' [is] because this

[is] thisand that [is] that.Moreover,this[holds] trueno matterwhatmindconceives [eitherobject] . . . because whatever s repugnantto any objectformallyn itself s repugnantto it,and what is not repugnantformally to

anyobject] in itself s not repugnant."91 n idea that was logically oherentrepresented omething hatwas possible, nd no deeper reasonforpossibilityhad to be sought.92

It was furthermoren the basis of thiscognitive-logical round thatDunsworked out his solutionto the problemof the immutabilityf truth.And

again whereHenry'sanswerto the problemrelied on reifyingheobjectof

90See Duns, OrdinatioI, d. 1,q. 2 (Vatican,7:43, n. 80; and 49, n. 93).91Duns, Ordinatio, d. 36,

q.un. (Vatican,6:296, n. 60).

92Two passages on theontologicalconcomitants f possibilitynd impossibilityre Lectura ,d. 36, q. un. (Vatican, 17:475, n. 39); and Ordinatio, d. 36, q. un. (Vatican,6:294-97, nn. 58-

63). See also Ordinatio , d.. 43, q. un. (Vatican, 6:354, n. 7). Duns's notion of possibilitys

complicated nd cannotbe adequatelycoveredhere.For a good beginning, onsult he excellentarticle y Ludger Honnefelder, Die Lehre vonderdoppeltenratitudo ntisund ihreBedeutungfiur ie Metaphysik esJohannesDuns Scotus," nDeus ethomod mentem. Duns Scoti, p. 661-

71, Acta Tertii Congressus Scotistici nternationalis,Vienna, 28 September-2 October 1970

(Rome, 1972).








knowledge n some eternalground dependent on an exemplaryrelationtoGod, for Duns no reificationwas necessary.Accordingto Duns the immuta-

bilityof immutablytrue propositionswas founded not in any particularontologicalconditionof the objects to whichthe propositionsreferredbut

rathersolely n the nature of the termsfrom which the propositionswereformed.Given the terms, f the relationbetween them could not be otherthan whatwas posited by the propositions n whichtheywere found,thenthepropositionswere immutably rue.

Of course the termsthemselveswere ultimately rounded in thebeingofthe objectsto whichtheyreferred, nd if one abstractedfrom the vagariesof the actual existenceof these objects as resextra nimam as would be

necessary or mmutable ruths avingto do with nything ut divinerealities- all thatwas left s an ontologicalbase forsuchtruthswas the esse ognitumof theobjectsas theywere known.This meant n thecase of propositions sknownby the human mind thatthe actual ontologicalfoundationfor the

propositionswas a beingthat pplied only n a manner ofspeaking secundumquid). Duns was willingto concede, therefore, hat the necessityof such

propositions, ven iftheywere immutably rue,could itself e strictlypeak-ing no more than a necessity ecundumuid.Such propositions ould not befalse,but if no human mind was thinking hemthey might implynot be.

Necessitypure and simple (simpliciter)ttachedto immutabletruths nlyas

theywere knownin the divinemind,where theiressecognitum ould be as

eternal as God himself.93 et thisconcessionwas not intended n any waytodiminish hescientific alue of humanknowledge.For Duns the mmutabilityof immutablepropositionsust did notdemand any greaterontologicalbasisthan thatwhichapplied to all objectsofhuman knowledge,bothsimpleand

complex.94Duns and Henrywerethus farapart in theirfinal stimate f theontolog-

ical significance f the groundof intellection. et in the end thisdifferencecannot obscure the deep parallels evident throughoutthe analysis givenabove. Not onlyDuns's language but also the verywayhe approached the

issue of theontological mplications f knowledgereveal how dependentheremainedon Henry's thought.Duns's idea of a quidditativebeing the mindwas directedtowards,regardlessof theactuality f itsobject,and hisnotionof essecognitum,ot identicalwithactual existenceor even being pure and

simple,were,despite all differences,urely nspiredby Henry'swork.It is in fact triking owDuns used hisnotion of a special cognitive round

to make sense oftheAugustiniandictumthat ll truthwas known na divineand eternal Light. For all Duns's effort o avoid the ontologismof Henry,hisexplanationofthisdoctrine, t least n theLectura, tuckremarkably lose

93For thisanalysisof immutability,ee Duns, Ordinatio, d. 3, p. 1,q. 4 (Vatican,3:151-52,nn. 247-48).

94 See Duns, Ordinatio, d. 2, p. 1,qq. 1-2 (Vatican,2:146-48, nn. 37-38) for an interestingpassage where Duns showed how farhe would go towardsreducingthe value of questionsofexistentialmportand more generallyof metaphysical ignificancewhen it came to immutableor self-evident ropositions.








tohis forebear's anguage on thesame issue. In the final nalysis, aid Duns,thevalidity f theAugustiniandoctrineofa Lightoftruth estedon thefactthatbothdivineand human knowledgewere referred o objects n theiresse

cognitum:. .. God is thenaturalcause ofall things therthanhimselfnsofar

as theyhave intelligible eing. Therefore,whatever s attributable o thingsinsofaras theyhave intelligible eing is naturally ttributable o them with

respectto the uncreated Light.Yet things s theyare objectsof intellectionnaturallydraw the intellect owards ntelligible eing,and thus [the ability]tolead the ntellect tounderstanding]s attributable o theessenceof a stoneor of any otherthing nsofaras it is fromGod as Light .... Therefore,weare said to understand n theuncreatedLight."95 uns hastened to add that

althoughthe essentialobjectsof the mind were themselves ternal nsofar stheywererelated to the divinemind,thehuman intellect ould notnaturally

see this relationor, consequently, hiseternalaspect of itsobjects.96 xceptforthisrestriction,hedoctrinecould almost be mistakenforHenry's.

What is more,Duns even drew fromhis theory f a cognitiveground aninterpretation f creation both peculiar and quite close to Henry's in itspeculiarity. ecause God first hought f hiscreaturesbeforecreating hem,Duns said thewhole process had to be divided intotwosteps. Firstcame aproduction fromabsolute nothinginto the essecognitumf objects of thedivinemind,and only later followed truecreation,no longerfromnothingpure and simple (simplicitere nihilo)but from ntelligible eing into actual

existence.97 t least superficiallyhisviewis identicalto the precedent, ndsomewhatcontroversial, iew of Henryof Ghent.98

This bringsus to the second group of epistemological nd noetic issueswhere the connectionbetweenHenryand Duns is revealed,to the questionof the knowledgeof being, especiallyas thisbore on human knowledgeofGod. Again Duns owed to Henry first nd perhaps most mportantlymuchofhisgeneralapproach tothe ssue, ncluding senseofthespecific roblemsand the context withinwhichtheywere to be investigated nd resolved. Itwas,as has been observed so often bove, Henrywho had suggestedthatthe

traditionalAugustinian inkbetweenthe problemof the knowledgeof Godand thatof the knowledgeof truth n a divine lightcould be broken andwho claimed that in the knowledge of being alone lay the key to human

knowledgeofGod. By placinghisownstress n being,Duns was onlyfollow-

ing thetrailHenryhad alreadyblazed. Yet here even more thanbefore,therelationbetweenDuns and Henry is moststrikinglymanifest o the reader

throughDuns's painstaking riticism f Henry'sdoctrines.It has already been noted thatDuns rejected outrightHenry'snotion of

an initial onfusedknowledgeofbeingmaskingwhatwas really knowledge

95Duns, Lectura , d. 3, p. 1,q. 3 (Vatican,16:302, n. 191). By the timehe wrotethe OrdinatioDuns had not onlymade thisinterpretationlearerand moreprecise,he had also toned downthe language more overtly esonantof Henry'sviews. See Ordinatio, d. 3, p. 1, q. 4 (Vatican,3:160-65, nn. 261-69); and d. 36, q. un. (Vatican,6:289-90, n. 47).

96Duns, Lectura , d. 3, p. 1,q. 3 (Vatican,16:303, n. 192).97Duns, OrdinatioI, d. 1,q. 2 (Vatican,7:43-44, nn. 82-84).98 See Marrone,Truth nd Scientificnowledge,p. 114, n. 61, and 126, n. 91.








throughtwoseparate and diverseconcepts,one proper to divinebeing andthe otherto the being of creatures.This doctrinehad played a crucial roleforHenry, allowinghim to explain how knowledgeof God was primary orthe human intellect ven

though temporallyimultaneouswiththatof crea-

tures nd tomostmindscompletely nobserved.Duns found tunsatisfactoryon numerousgrounds.At thevery east,he said,Henrycontradicted imself.There was no waythatbeing could be the first hingknownbythe mindasitcontained ndistinctlyoththebeingofGod and thatofcreatureswhile atthesame time, s Duns said Henrymaintained,God was himself irst nownas beingnegativelyndeterminate nd therebydistinguishable romthenec-

essarily eterminedbeingof creatures.99Whatwasworse, he doctrine hreat-ened to undermine all rational discourse. It it were possible thattwo such

important onceptsas thoseof divineand createdbeing could be habitually

mistakenbythe mind as one concept,then whatconfidence ould the mindhave thatany otherconcept it took to be single,and therebyunivocal,wasin fact o? And ifunivocitywere generally o dubious a thing,would not all

syllogistic easoningbe suspect?100These were argumentsdirectedagainst the implications f Henry's doc-

trineor the circumstances urrounding tsdefense. Duns also felt t could beattackedmoresquarelyon itsown.The basisofhis criticism as an argumentthat he used frequentlynd thathe consideredone ofhis strongestn favorof the univocity f "being"- the argumentfromcertitude nd dubiety.As

the argumentran in its basic form,one could not be certainabout one'sknowledgeof a concept and doubtfulabout it at the same time. n the caseof "being"one could not be certainthatan object- sayGod - was a beingand doubtfulwhetherhe was an infinite r a finite eingif"being"werenotitself discrete oncept,priortoand distinct rom tsmodulations nto nfiniteand finite.101pplied to Henry's theory, heargumentmeant thatthenotionof an initial,confused knowledge of being was simply llogical.102t was

impossibleto have a certainnotion of a concept thatwas actuallya combi-nation of two distinct oncepts- certainenough, forexample, to say that

God was being -unless one alreadyhad certainknowledgeof each of thedistinct onceptsbythemselves.But Henryhad admittedthat not all mindsknew whetherGod's beingwas finite r infinite. his meantthatsome were

99Duns, Ordinatio, d. 3, p. 1,qq. 1-2 (Vatican,3:67-68, n. 107). On thispointDuns was not

exactlygiving fair account of the subtlety f Henry'sdoctrine.100Duns, Ordinatio, d. 3, p. 1,qq. 1-2 (Vatican,3:20, n. 30).101See, for instance,Duns, Ordinatio, d. 3, p. 1, qq. 1-2 (Vatican,3:18, n. 27), a passage

Duns referred to in Ordinatio, d. 8, p. 1, q. 3 (Vatican,4:173, n. 51; and 178, n. 56). In a

marginalnote Duns referred gain to this rgument de conceptucerto et dubio" (see Ordinatio

I, d. 3, p. 1,qq. 1-2 [Vatican,3:29-31, notea]) and explained that he thought t was one of thetwostrongesthe could produce in favorof univocity.

102ee thediscussion n Duns, Ordinatio, d. 8, p. 1,q. 3 (Vatican,4:179-81, nn. 59-63; and

183, n. 67), as well as the parallel passage in Lectura , d. 8, p. 1, q. 3 (Vatican, 17:23-26, nn.

69-78). Whatappears to be an earlyversionof this rgument ppears in one of Duns's collationes

(see Collationes,. 3, ed. Harris, p. 371), while an expositionof the view againstwhichDuns

argued can be found in another see Collationes 3 [Vives,5:201b-202a]).








both doubtfulor uncertainof the twoconceptsand certain of them at thesame time.Henrywas positing clear impossibility.

If one could not accept the argument n thisform, herewas a variant.103

Henry'stheoryentailed that the conceptsof finite nd infinite

eing- the

twoconceptshidden under the initial onfusedknowledgeofbeing- were

absolutely undamental.They were, n Duns's words, rreduciblyimple sim-pliciterimplex),or therewas no conceptmorecommon or simplethanthey.Yet an irreducibly impleconceptcould notbe knownconfusedly r in part.Consequentlyone must know nothingabout these two concepts or knowthem fullyand distinctly.Henry was eitherwrong about his theoryof aconfusedknowledgeor wrongabout the irreduciblenatureof his two con-

ceptsofbeing. In either case his doctrinecould not stand.Yet therewas a still

graver problemDuns saw in

Henry'stheories.Even if

one conceded thelogicality f an initial onfusedknowledgeofbeing, Henrystillhad not convincingly xplained human knowledgeof God in thislife.

Henryand Duns agreed thatman'snaturalknowledgeofGod mustoriginatein the knowledgeof creatures; t could not be a knowledgedirect from the

divinitytself. n Henry's case thismeant that the processbywhichhuman

knowledgeof God was derivedhad to span thegap of the analogybetweendivine and created being. As argued above, this seemed possible because

Henry thoughthis theoryof absolute essence explained how the mindwasled

naturallyrom ts

knowledgeof theessence ofcreatures o

knowledgeof

the relationbetweenexemplified nd exemplar upon whichall essence wasbased to knowledgeof the divineexemplar itself.104

Duns rejected the notion of absolute essence upon whichthisargumentwasbased. But even ifthe notion had been valid,Duns thought,Henrycouldnot legitimately ave drawnupon it to accountfor the naturalknowledgeofGod. One simplycould not know a relation betweenthingswithouthavingpriorknowledgeof the thingson whichthe relationwas founded. In otherwords,knowingthe relationbetween a created being and the divinebeing

uponwhich t

dependedfor ts

essentialityould notbe a

wayto

knowledgeof the divinebeing,because one could notknow the relationwithout lreadyknowing he divinebeing thatprovidedone of its extremes.105hus Henry'saccount of the knowledge of God in the knowledge of being would not

103 Duns, Ordinatio, d. 8, p. 1,q. 3 (Vatican,4:182, n. 64).104 In Ordinatio, d. 8, p. 1, q. 3 (Vatican,4:174-75, n. 52); and Lectura , d. 8, p. 1, q. 3

(Vatican, 17:21, n. 63), Duns gave a perceptiveaccount of how Henry's theoryof absoluteessence or res ratitudine ightbe used to supporthisnotion of thenaturalknowledgeofGod,

despitethe

problemsraised

bythe

theoryf the

analogyof

"being."As noted above

(n. 79),the

preciseversion of the argumentDuns had in mindprobably ame fromRichardofConington,but itsgeneral formcould have been drawnfromHenry'sown works.

105See Duns, LecturaJ,d. 8, p. 1, q. 3 (Vatican, 17:21-22, nn. 64-65), and especiallythesentence fromparagraph 64: "Igitursi ens ratum i.e., essence or res a ratitudine] eferatur d

Deum, antequam cognoscitu'rlla relatiooportet praecognoscereDeum...." In his Collationes,

q. 3 (ed. Harris,pp. 374-75), Duns recitedthe same argumentdrawn fromHenry's theory fessence and gave the same response.








work.106 is theory f essence and thebeingofessencedid notadvance himone jot closer to solvingthe problemof how the human mind had natural

knowledgeof God. He stillhad not succeeded in showinghow the intellectcame to know a

beingthat was only analogous to the beings available as

objects n normalcognition.We have now returnedto the issue at the heart of this article. For Duns

wasnotcriticizing enrysimplyforthesake ofcriticism; e was instead, ike

Henry,trying o work out an acceptable explanationfor human knowledgeof God. Ironicallyhiscriticism fHenryraised as manyproblems s itsolved.One can now see mostfully he natureof Duns's dilemma,the dilemmaofan Augustinianwho had lost hismoorings the dilemma Gilson and Bettonidrewattention o long ago.

Let us summarizethe argumentso far. The classictheoryof divine illu-

minationhad made it easy to account for how the human mind drew itsknowledgeof God from tsknowledgeof worldly hings.Without a literaldivine illumination,however,the process became more difficulto explain.Henry had separated the paradigm of divine illuminationfromhis expla-nation of the mind's road to God, suggesting hat twas enough to say thattheknowledgeof God was immanent n theprimaryknowledgeofbeingthemind receivedfromcontactwiththe createdworld. Yet ifthere was nothingreallycommon betweenthe being of God and thatof creatures and if the

concept of God's being was only analogous to the concept of the being of

creatures, hen how did the mindactually ome up with heconceptofGod'sbeingwithout nydirectavenue to the divine?

This was theproblemofspanningtheanalogyofbeing, nd Henry thoughthe had solved it withhistheory f essence. In knowingbeingas itwas foundin creatures that s, in knowing heessentialnatureof creaturely eing-the mind was exposed to the relationbetweenall creatures and God andfrom his t could draw a knowledgeofthedivinefoundation fthatrelation,God's being itself.Once Duns had rejected Henry's reasoningas illogical,hefound himself n trouble.He had rejectedthetheory fdivine llumination.

He agreed with Henry and all Scholastics that there was nothingreallycommon between God and creatures. f theconceptof being as referred oGod and as referred ocreatureswasonlyanalogically hesame,and ifHenrywas wrong about essence and the primaryknowledgeof being,would thisnot place an insuperable obstacle in the way of any natural knowledgeofGod? Would not the veryterm "divinebeing"be, for thewayfarer, ither acontradiction r completelywithoutmeaning?How could one even pretendto talk about God?

Accordingto theinterpretationfGilson and Bettoni,Duns foundhiswayout of the dilemmaby denyingthemerely nalogical unity f theconceptofbeing and developing the radicallynew notion that the simple concept of

beingwas transcendent nd univocal.After his engthy ttempt o set Dunsmore precisely n the contextof his debate withHenry, twould seem that

106ee Duns, Lectura , d. 8, p. 1,q. 3 (Vatican, 17:22, n. 67); and Ordinatio, d. 8, p. 1,q. 3

(Vatican,4:175-77, nn. 53-54).








there s stillreason to believe thatthis nterpretation sufficiently odifiedto make room for the complexitywe have uncovered- is correct.

Of courseitwasnotDuns's rejection f llumination hatwasthe mmediatesourceofhisdifficulties. s has been shown,Henryhad alreadycoveredthis

ground by devisinga theoryof being and essence thatat least potentiallyexplained knowledgeof God without ecourseto classical llumination n itsliteralform.WhatbroughtDuns to his dilemmawas hisrejection f Henry'stheory fessence and itscognition n a peculiarly elative uidditativebeing.Gilson and Bettonineed to be correctedon this core. Otherwise hegeneraltenorof theirargumentholds true. The theoreticalpressureson Duns to

accept the univocity f the simple concept of being were enormous. If hewanted to keep therestof his system,nd stick o hiscritiqueof HenryandhisevenmoreAugustinianpredecessors,he had almostnowhereelse toturn.

The theory f theunivocity f theconceptofbeing solvedhis problemwithone stroke.

There can be no proof n matters ikethis,but thecircumstantialvidenceis strong.Duns did in factcriticizeHenry forholding to the mere analogyof theconceptof being,and he criticizedhimprecisely n thegroundsthatsuch a limitation o analogy would have preventedthe human mind from

having any natural concept of God.107 n place of thishe devised his ownidea that the simpleconceptofbeingwas in factunivocal.

Duns's .theory f univocitynd itsapplicationto "being"have been so well

treatedelsewherethat there s no need to go into theissue in depthhere.108By the time of his matureworks Duns had decided thatalthough n realitybeingwas notsomething ommon toall objectsbutradically iverse,divisiblemostfundamentallynto the being of God and thebeing of creatures, tillthe simple concept of being -"being" without ny qualification appliedunivocally o all objectsno matterwhatsortof real being theyhad.109Thiswas to saythattherewas a simpleand undividedconceptofbeingso generalthat t applied to all conceivableobjectswithout quivocation,even without

107See Duns, Ordinatio, d. 3, p. 1, qq. 1-2 (Vatican,3:21-22, n. 35); and at greater ength,Lectura , d. 3, p. 1, qq. 1-2 (Vatican, 16:233-35, nn. 25-28). Duns also argued that"being"must be univocal if the intellectwas to have a first dequate object see Lectura , d. 3, p. 1,qq.1-2 [Vatican, 16:261, n. 98]; and Ordinatio, d. 3, p. 1, q. 3 [Vatican,3:80-81, n. 129]). Thisreason had nothingto do with criticism f Henryon the naturalknowledgeofGod. But itwasnot a reason Duns gave great weightto in establishing he univocity f transcendentals

certainly ot one thatoriginally rove him to formulatehis new view. Twice in marginalnotesto his Ordinatio e listed his reasons forsupporting heunivocity f "being,"and in neither istdid thisargument ppear. See themarginalpassage cited n n. 101 above, and Ordinatio, d. 8,p. 1,q. 3 (Vatican,4:173, note a).

108 ee especiallyWolter,TheTranscendentals,p. 31-57; and on Duns's early deas, Marrone,"The Notion of Univocityn Duns Scotus'sEarlyWorks."

109ee Duns, Lectura , d.,8, p. 1,q. 3 (Vatican,17:29, n. 84; and 46-47, n. 129); and OrdinatioI, d. 8, p. 1, q. 3 (Vatican,4:190, n. 82). A lucid statement f Duns's positioncan be found inCollationes,. 3, ed. Harris,p. 374: "Ad propositumdico quod nulla realitasest communis Deoet creaturae nec tamen intellectus st falsus,quoniam habet univocumconceptumde eis; quiautrumque,tam Deus quam creatura n se realiterbene possitmovere ntellectum d hujusmodiconceptumfaciendum n eo; nec tamen tum suntunita in aliqua re."








analogy. In order to be sure that he had indeed accounted forall possibleobjects- thequalitative s wellas quidditative spectsofreality Duns feltcompelled to devise his theory f thedouble primacy fbeing: the primacyofcommonness nd theprimacy fvirtuality.110iththismodification, ow-

ever,he felthis theoryof univocitywas universally rue. The way he ac-counted for the descent fromthe unityof the conceptto the real diversityof being as either nfinite r finite, ivine or created,was to say thatbeingwas fundamentally iversified y ts ntrinsicmodes,whichwerereally lwayspresentbut could be ignored by the abstractingmind."' This allowed himto do withoutformaldifferences,whichwould have implicatedbeing in thegenericor real unityhe was trying o avoid.

Whatis so strikingbout thistheory s that twas radicallynew.Duns hadsimplified he standarKdefinition f univocity. n his view a concept was

univocal whenever it could be applied according to the same notion andintentionratio) oall itsobjective eferents egardless fwhether heseobjectshad any real unity."2He had also explicitly xtended the applicationof hisnewlyredefinedterm. For Duns univocitypplied beyondAristotle's orms,even beyond the accepted Scholasticextensionto the fivepredicables, o asto include transcendentaltermsthat until then had been seen to escapeunivocity ltogether."3Of course themost mportant f thetranscendentalswas "being."There was, said Duns, no ambiguity: rom hepointofviewofthe logician"being"was unusconceptusommunis.T14

Equally importants theprecisehistory fthestepsbywhichDuns workedout his new theory.Duns committedhimself o the univocity f the simpleconceptofbeingonlywhenhe came tohisCommentariesnthe entences, ostparticularlyo thequestions n distinction ofbook 1 on knowledgeof Godand in distinction on how to referproperly o him.15 In his earlyworks,whichdealt withmatters flogicabstracted rom uchtheological r religiousconcerns,he had held to the traditionalview that"being"was not univocal.That the innovationappeared just as he began his career as a theologian sanotherpowerful ircumstantialrgument hatBettoni nd Gilsonwererightin attributing largely religiousmotive for his new idea.16 And, indeed,Duns proceeded to apply the new doctrinemost conspicuouslyto explainhow the human mind knew God and was able to generatemeaningfuldis-course about him in this ife."17

110See Duns, Ordinatio, d. 3, p. 1,q. 3 (Vatican,3:85-86, n. 137); and Lectura , d. 3, p. 1,qq. 1-2 (Vatican 16:261-62, n. 99). The chart in Wolter,The Transcendentals,. 99, gives anexcellentrenderingof howbeing's twoprimaciesweredivided withrespectto possibleobjects.11See Duns, Ordinatio, d. 8,

p.1,

q.3 (Vatican,4:222-24, nn.

138-41).112 Duns, Ordinatio, d. 8, p. 1,q. 3 (Vatican,4:195, n. 88).13 On the radical newnessof Duns's idea of univocitynd thestandard imitation o thefive

predicables, ee above, n. 16, and Marrone,"The Notion of Univocity."114 Duns, Lectura , d. 3, p. 1, qq. 1-2 (Vatican, 16:268-69, nn. 117-18); see also Ordinatio,

d. 3, p. 1,q. 3 (Vatican,3:100-101, n. 163).115 In theOrdinatio,heseare qq. 1-3 of d. 3, p. 1 ofbook 1, and q. 3 ofd. 8, p. 1.116 On thissee Marrone,"The Notion of Univocity."117 See Duns, Ordinatio, d. 3, p. 1,q. 3 (Vatican,3:87, n. 139): "... Deus non estcognoscibilis








Like Henry,he maintainedthatthe primarynatural knowledgeof Godwas a knowledgeof God as beingthat s, thattheknowledgeof God wasattained throughthe mind's most general knowledgeof being itself.Like

Henry,he held thatthe mind moved to this mostgeneral knowledgefrom

its contact withparticularbeings in the world and then progressed to aqualifiedknowledgeofbeingreferringmoreproperly o God. To thisdegreehe adopted thesuperficialitiesfHenry'sthree ubgradesof themostgeneralknowledgeof God.

Yet beneath the surface the process as Duns interpreted twas radicallydifferent. or Duns the primaryknowledgeof God was no longer Henry'salmost prioricognition fGod embedded deep in themind's confrontationwithbeing as a confused first bject. There was, forDuns, no irreduciblysimple concept of God's being immanent n an initialunderstandingthat

obscured the radical differences etween Creatorand created.Instead Dunsthoughtthat the mind worked itsway to knowingGod by constructingsynthetic oncept of the divinity ut of general termsnot only all derivedfrom heknowledgeof creaturesbutalso all legitimatelyredicableofthem.First mong these terms was "being." For thisreason itwas critical hat the

simple conceptof "being"be univocal.118f theunqualified"being"thatthemind had taken from tsknowledgeof things n the worldwas not directlyapplicable to God as well as to creatures, herewould have been no wayforhumanbeingsto worktowards knowledgeof thedivinityn this ife.

The fact that "being" could be predicated univocallyof both God andcreatures also meant that the concept the mind eventuallyformedof the

divinitywas (althougha compositeof more general termsoriginallyknownas theyapplied to creatures)truly uidditative. t referred o God's essence

directly nd not,as Henryhad held, quasiperaccidens.119he mindcame tothisconceptby following hewaycanonized in theworksofAugustineand

Dionysius, bstractingwhateverthere was of perfectionn our ideas as theyreferred o creaturesand attributinghemaccordingto the greatestdegreeto the highestbeing of all.120This process would generate,among other

notionsof God, the concept of God as "infinite eing" (ens nfinitum),hichafter careful considerationthe mind accepted as the best,or mostperfect,proper notion of God it could naturallydevise while in the world.'21This

a nobis naturaliternisi ens sit univocumcreato et increato .. "; also Lectura , d. 8, p. 1, q. 3

(Vatican,17:27, n. 80).118 For Duns's basic statement n theknowledgeof God in theunivocalconceptofbeing,see

Ordinatio, d. 3, p. 1, qq. 1-2 (Vatican,3:18-19, nn. 26-29); and Lectura , d. 3. p. 1, qq. 1-2

(Vatican,16:232, n. 21).119ee Duns, Ordinatio, d. 3, p. 1,qq. 1-2 (Vatican,3:16-17, n. 25). On Henry'snotionof a

quidditativeknowledgeof God peraccidens,ee above, n. 46.120 See Duns, Ordinatio, d. 3, p. 1, qq. 1-2 (Vatican,3:26-27, n. 39); and Lectura , d. 3, p.

1,qq. 1-2 (Vatican, 16:246, n. 56); and d. 8, p. 1,q. 3 (Vatican,17:26-27, nn. 79-80).121 Duns, Ordinatio, d. 3,'p. 1, qq. 1-2 (Vatican,3:40, n. 58); d. 2, p. 1, qq. 1-2 (Vatican,

2:214-15, n. 147); and Lectura , d. 3, p. 1, qq. 1-2 (Vatican, 16:244, n. 50). More specificallyon the movefrom notionofbeingcommonto God and creatures oa conceptofbeing properonlytoGod, see Ordinatio, d. 8, p. 1,q. 3 (Vatican,4:193-94, n. 86); Lectura , d. 8, p. 1,q. 3








was, of course, not an absolutely imple (simpliciterimplex) oncept of Godbut rather complexone builtup from impler omponents.122onsequently,althoughitwas the most perfect oncept of God the mind could devise, itwas not fullyperfect,giving nstead an only imperfect whichis to say,incomplete notion of whatGod was.123A perfect onceptwould have tobe, like God himself, bsolutely imple.Yet the conceptwas, Duns thought,good enough to permitan a posterioriproof of God's existence.124t wasalso sufficient o allow one to make significanttatements f thebasic tenetsof Christianfaith,even if one could not naturallysee the truth of suchstatements r prove them to be true.125n short,on thevalidity f "infinitebeing"as a conceptofGod restedthepossibility ot onlyof anymeaningfulnaturaltheologybut also of a positive heology s well.126

In the end one cannot deny that Duns was different romHenry, evenadamantlyopposed to him,on numerous ssues.Yet itremains truethat forall theirdifferences he twoScholasticsdeveloped systems f thoughtthatwere not ust occasionally n agreementbut ratherfundamentally elatedso thatDuns was really uiteclose to thematureHenryon matters fnoetics,epistemology,nd also human knowledgeofGod. The general structure fDuns's thought,his notion of the basic problemsto confront nd the wayquestions houldbe posed,was greatly ependenton his famouspredecessor.The veryfact hat large partof hisnoetics nd epistemologywas elaborated

by expounding the doctrines of Henry and then hammeringout his ownresponse practically nsured that this would be the case. More specifically,Duns's examinationof theontologicalramificationsfcognition eliedalmostcompletely n thepreviousconsideration f the matterbyHenry, nd manyofhissolutionswereinspired, vendirectly haped, byHenry'swork.On thematter of a special cognitiveground one mightsay that Duns continuedwhereHenrybroke off.FinallyDuns was profoundlynfluencedbyHenry'sintuitiveunderstandingthat the notion of being as primaryobject of theintellectwas theplace to look for n answertothequestionofhowthehuman

mind could knowGod - the place to look, that s, once the idea of God'slightstreaming nto the mind as a kind of normativeforce lost its charm.

(Vatican,17:30, n. 87); and Quodlibet,. 14, n. 3 (Vives,26:5b-6a). In thisquodlibetalquestionDuns indicated he mightback awayfromhisunequivocaldefense of theunivocityf theconceptofbeing- see n. 11 (Vives, 21:40a).

122ee Duns, Ordinatio, d. 3, p. 1, qq. 1-2 (Vatican,3:42, n. 61); and Wolter,TheTranscen-dentals, p. 43-44, esp. n. 30.

123ee Duns, Ordinatio, d. 8, p. 1, q. 3 (Vatican,4:221-22, nn. 137-38); and even better,Lectura , d. 8,

p.1,

q.3 (Vatican, 17:46-47, n. 129). In Lectura , d. 3,

p.1,

qq.1-2

(Vatican,16:246, n. 56), Duns said that n this ife one could knowGod only nuniversali.124See, for nstance,Ordinatio, d. 2, p. 1,qq. 1-2 (Vatican,2:148, n. 39).125Duns, OrdinatioII, d. 23, q. un., n. 9 (Vives, 15:15b). See also OrdinatioII, d. 24, q. un.,

nn. 11 and 22 (Vives, 15:42b and 53a-b).126 One is here veryclose to an idea Gilson touched on in hisJeanDuns Scot,p. 573 - that

the Scholasticingenuity f Duns was not ust a habitpickedup in theuniversities ut ratheraforcethatgave life tohis whole theology, laying role analogous tothatofAugustine'smysticalspiritualityn theworks of thatgreatfather f thechurch.








Duns's full-fledged heoryof the univocity f "being"was, therefore,whenconsidered fromthe functionalist erspective f Bettoniand Gilson,simplya refinement fwhatHenryhad already begun. It was a consequence of the

step Henry had taken in dividingthe processes and functionspreviouslybound together n theclassic notionof divine llumination.

WhatdistinguishedDuns fromHenryon all these matterswas hisrejectionof the ontologism owardswhichmanyof Henry'sspecificdoctrines eemedto lean - a noeticopeningto God that hreatened obreakdown thedivisionbetweentheworldsofsin and beatitude.WhereHenry'snotionof thespecialgroundofknowledge, nd histheory f essence that aybehindit,resonatedwith the metaphysics f participation, or Duns the theoryof an absolute

groundupon whichtheobjectsofcognition hould be analyzedhad no morethan a logicalsignificance.WhereforHenrytheknowledgeofGod in "being"impliedan a priori grasp of God and his existence, o Duns the same setofideas werecompletely ivorcedfrom hea priori nd tiedmuchmorecloselyto an Aristoteliannotion of a posterioridemonstration. he differencewasmanifested ven in the two thinkers' pproach to the nature of possibility.To Henry possibility ad to be explained metaphysically, ithrecourseto his

theory f essense and a stronggrounding n hisontology frelationto God.To Duns, metaphysicalconsiderationswere less compelling and a logicalexplanationofpossibilitymore thansufficientorthephilosopher's oncerns.

Thus the historicalvisionof Bettoniand Gilson was largelycorrect.Keyaspectsof Duns's thoughtcan be explained by seeing themas the resultofan Augustinian'sefforts o preservemuch of his heritagewhile concedingthe ustice of some criticisms f it. Yet manyof the specifics f theirviewneed to be revised.They have laid too much emphasison the negativeand

giventoo littlerecognition o the complexity f the ties betweenDuns andhis predecessors, speciallyHenryofGhent.Duns did not simplyrejectoneof Henry'scentral deas - divineillumination and thendevelop his ownnotion of univocity o insure the Augustinianroad of the mind to God.Instead he reproduced in his own thoughtmuchof thetopography f Hen-

ry'smentalworld. One can even argue thatthis s howDuns shouldbe seen,as to a greatextent commentator n Henry.He tookHenry'suniverseandmade it his own,whileclarifyingt with n uncompromisingogicalcritique.He reused old structures nd did not simplybuild anew afterhavingde-molished the errorsof thosewho came before.

Date post:	02-Apr-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	tatacherub
View:	216 times
Download:	0 times

Ghent Scotus on the Knowledge of Being

Documents